


Real Champion

by thequidditchpitch_archivist



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Drama, Erotica, Explicit Sexual Content, M/M, Slash, The Quidditch Pitch: The Changing Room, Threesome
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2006-02-20
Updated: 2006-03-12
Packaged: 2018-10-27 11:04:39
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Major Character Death, Underage
Chapters: 17
Words: 27,665
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10807788
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thequidditchpitch_archivist/pseuds/thequidditchpitch_archivist
Summary: Ron has been mad for Cedric as long as he can remember. When he and Harry fall out over the Triwizard Tournament, Ron finds some thoroughly worthwhile uses for his spare time.





	1. Prologue: Remember

**Author's Note:**

> Note from Annie, the archivist: this story was originally archived at [The Quidditch Pitch](http://fanlore.org/wiki/The_Quidditch_Pitch), which went offline in 2015 when the hosting expired, at a time I was not able to renew it. I contacted Open Doors, hoping to preserve the archive using an old backup, and began importing these works as an Open Doors-approved project in April 2017. Open Doors e-mailed all authors about the move and posted announcements, but may not have reached everyone. If you are (or know) this creator, please contact us using the e-mail address on [The Quidditch Pitch collection profile](http://archiveofourown.org/collections/thequidditchpitch/profile).

  
Author's notes: Set during Goblet of Fire, so guess who the 'character death' is? Harry and Ron are 14/15 and Cedric is 17, which I'm calling 'underage' but could be considered 'chan' in some circles.  
  
This fic was beta'd by Copper Beech and read by Magicofisis, both of whom have my undying gratitude.  


* * *

He could trace it back about five years, to the time he and Ginny had been allowed to come along when his mum was taking Charlie, Percy and the twins to King's Cross to catch the train. After the fiasco with the twins and Percy and the dungbomb two years earlier, Molly had been especially nervous about the two troublemakers starting school, so Ron and Ginny had been forced to promise that they would be as quiet as mice and would touch nothing and speak to no one.  
  
And so it had happened that when Cedric Diggory had looked right at him and said, "Alright, there?" Ron had dropped his eyes and pressed his lips together in silence.  
  
He could trace it back even further, though, to his earliest memories. The Diggories were one of the wizarding families who lived nearest the Burrow, so Cedric and the occasional visiting cousin had often come over in the summers while their fathers and Cedric's mum were all at work. They'd played games of chase and hide-and-seek, and of course Quidditch once they were old enough. Ron's own love of flying dated back, for sure, to the first time he'd seen Cedric on a broom. If a person could look like that in flight, he'd decided, then it was something he _had_ to learn to do.  
  
All in all, Ron reckoned he'd been mad about Cedric Diggory for most of his life.  
  
In a way, it had made it easier for him to become friends with Harry. Sure, Harry was extra-special, being the world-famous Boy-Who-Lived, but Ron had long since learned how to act as normally as possible when he was in an advanced state of awe, so talking to Harry had been easy. As it had turned out, all Harry had needed had been to be treated like a normal person, so making friends with him had happened without any effort at all.  
  
Being friends with Harry had presented its share of challenges, though, as Ron grew older and started to understand more about what it meant to be this fascinated with another bloke. It meant having secrets, even from your very closest friends. Having a friend as close as Harry had made it even more excruciating to keep his secrets to himself.  
  
It got harder, too, during Ron's Third Year, when Cedric had grown taller and more handsome than ever. Ron remembered feeling his breath dry up every time Cedric walked by. He'd even caught himself rooting for Cedric in the match between Hufflepuff and Gryffindor. He'd _wanted_ Harry to win, of course, but since that had always happened up until then, it had seemed harmless to allow himself a little fantasy, watching Cedric fly through the air.  
  
And then the Dementors had shown up, and Harry had fallen, and Ron had feared he might never be able to forgive himself for his disloyalty.  
  
That time had been the hardest for Ron, and not only because he was keeping secrets from Harry, or because he was flogging himself over his moment of selfishness. It had been the hardest because that had been when Cedric had taken up with Oliver Wood.  
  
Ron couldn't talk about it, of course. He never breathed a word of it to _anyone_ , not even to Harry. He thought about it constantly, though: about what he'd thought he'd seen in the changing rooms, late in the evening after the match between Hufflepuff and Ravenclaw.  
  
Ron had seen the fiasco as Cedric and his team had been humiliated by Davies and Chang and the rest of the Ravenclaw side. When it had all been over and the figures in bright yellow robes had slunk slowly off to the showers, Ron had hidden in the shadows, trying to drum up the courage to go after Cedric and say something encouraging, something that might make Cedric smile at him in that particular way that always sent a bolt of electricity to a point deep in the pit of Ron's stomach. And so it had been that he'd seen Oliver Wood ease into the changing rooms, and not emerge for what felt like hours.  
  
Ron had waited in the stands for them to come out, eyes fixed to the door. The silence had seemed interminable. His pulse had raced in panic, telling him he knew _exactly_ what was going on in there, although every corner of his mind dug for alternative reasons why Oliver would be hanging around in the changing rooms while Cedric showered. Maybe they'd made plans to study together (even though Oliver was two years ahead of Cedric). Maybe Cedric and Oliver regularly discussed important Captain business (even though all the Houses were competitive enough that the teams almost never interacted). Maybe Oliver had gone to console Cedric over the humiliating loss against Ravenclaw (well ... precisely).  
  
Maybe, Ron had thought as his curiosity had overruled his caution and he'd crept around the side of the shed and found the window above the showers, Oliver was ... oh. He'd tried to look inside, but the glass had been too fogged to see clearly. The lights inside had outlined the blurry edges of two forms in the showers, which had meant Oliver was in there, too. Unless Ron's brain had been playing games with his unwilling eyes, Oliver had been in much closer contact with Cedric than was strictly necessary for showering. In fact, Ron's brain had convinced him that he was seeing two naked, soap-slicked, muscled bodies slipping over each other on the padded shower floor. Unable to look away, Ron's eyes had teared up as quickly as the blood had rushed to his groin and his hands had found his zipper.  
  
Ron had been blindingly jealous for days. Harry and Hermione had never understood why he had suddenly turned nastier about blaming Crookshanks for Scabbers's failing health. He'd never really cared about that stupid rat, anyway, even before he'd found out it had been a worthless Death Eater who'd helped murder Harry's parents. He'd been angry about the possibility of losing one of the few things he'd ever had for himself, sure. Mostly, at first, it had only been a bit of fun, winding Hermione up about her maniac cat. And then, after almost seeing Cedric with Oliver, it had given him a good excuse for being in a foul temper.  
  
The only saving grace, in the whole situation, had been the nugget of very important information it had afforded him: Cedric fancied _blokes_. Or, at least he fancied _one_ bloke. And, Ron surmised, if he fancied one, he could perfectly well fancy another, at some point in the future ... especially once his boyfriend had left school.


	2. Part One: A Good Surprise

  
Author's notes: Set during Goblet of Fire, so guess who the 'character death' is? Harry and Ron are 14/15 and Cedric is 17, which I'm calling 'underage' but could be considered 'chan' in some circles.  
  
This fic was beta'd by Copper Beech and read by Magicofisis, both of whom have my undying gratitude.  


* * *

When Dumbledore announced the Triwizard Tournament, at the Halloween Feast during his Fourth Year, Ron was positively _giddy_.  
  
He was giddy with excitement, with fear, with anticipation. He was sure Cedric would put his name in, even though he'd pretended to be surprised when that idiot MacMillan had mentioned it. Ron even had to pretend to think Cedric was a big, dumb pretty boy when he'd realised Hermione was watching him scowl jealously at MacMillan's admiration of Cedric. Cedric was _his_ , and no stupid Hufflepuff had the right to admire him openly, in public, when Ron had had to hide it all his life.  
  
On the day that the Goblet of Fire stood accepting names of hopefuls, Ron watched Cedric stride up the length of the Hall in front of every last person in the school, and was sure he would swoon on the spot or do something equally idiotic to let every last person know exactly how much he fancied this older student from another House who could rarely be arsed to do more than say hello to him in the corridors.  
  
As Cedric stepped across the Age Line, Ron's heart and breath grew oddly, echoingly loud, as though no one else existed in the vast, crowded room. It was happening more and more, these days, that Cedric being in a room meant that the center of gravity shifted until Ron's entire attention was focussed in one, small place. Ron watched the muscles in Cedric's back and shoulders flex as he walked, even under the layers and folds of his school robes, and was only dimly aware of how obvious it must be that he was practically drooling.  
  
Cedric's gaze skipped past Ron's face as he turned from the Goblet, and Ron briefly let himself believe he would be seen an acknowledged, but then Cedric passed him by on the way back to the Hufflepuff table, and Ron could only stare into his porridge, trying to pretend he didn't see the odd looks Hermione and Harry were exchanging.  
  
And then Harry's name popped out of the Goblet, and Ron decided right then and there that he cared sod-all about what anyone else thought.  
  
The afternoon of the Weighing of the Wands, Ron ran into Cedric in a quiet corridor where he'd taken a stroll to avoid Harry and to avoid thinking about how lonely he was without him. His heart began racing the moment he spotted those shining grey eyes and he was afraid his voice would crack when he opened his mouth to say, "Hi, Cedric."  
  
Cedric looked up, as though surprised to find another person there. Ron's heart raced when Cedric's eyes lit up with friendly recognition. "Ron! Alright there?"  
  
"Alright," Ron managed to utter. "You?"  
  
Cedric shrugged. It was an elegant, fluid motion for which a stubby word like 'shrug' would never suffice. His easy smile lit up the entire corridor.  
  
"My wand checked out, so yeah, I suppose I'm alright."  
  
Ron felt colour creeping into his cheeks. It wasn't his intention for thoughts of Cedric's wand to get him excited, but he couldn't help himself.  
  
"Ready for the First Task, then?" babbled Ron in an attempt to cover his shyness. He was relieved to find that the more he talked, the easier it got to act normally. "Any idea what it'll be?"  
  
Cedric's shoulders did that fluid thing again, and Ron most definitely did not fixate on the way it made Cedric's robes fall a bit aside to expose more of his throat.  
  
"Nah, haven't the slightest," he said without any hint of worry. "Something big, I imagine." He looked at Ron, then, as though really registering his presence for the first time. "You're not worried about your friend Harry? A mystery challenge like this, seems like a lot to ask from a Fourth Year."  
  
Ron bristled a bit, for a variety of reasons. "I'm sure Harry can take care of himself," Ron responded darkly. "He must have known what he was doing, when he put his name in. Anyway, Fourth Years are capable of a lot, you know."  
  
He tried to face Cedric down defiantly, but he only blushed again when he realised the possible interpretations of the words he'd said.  
  
Cedric was silent for a long moment, watching him. His attention was focused, interested and yet detached, like someone watching a scene play out on a stage. Ron swore he could feel his body heat through their layers of clothing, even from a few feet away.  
  
"So you really think he put his own name in?" asked Cedric, his focus sharpening.  
  
Ron's shrug was much jerkier and bonier than Cedric's had been. He had the unsettling sense that Cedric's opinion on the matter was set, and that at the moment he was more curious about what Ron really believed than about what was true.  
  
In the shifting torchlight, Cedric's eyes glinted in a way that was almost challenging. Ron decided it was time to answer the call, or accept defeat indefinitely.  
  
He took a purposeful step forward, placing himself almost nose-to-nose with his longtime idol.  
  
"I know who the _real_ Hogwarts Champion is," he said quietly, miraculously maintaining steady eye-contact with Cedric.  
  
Time stretched out so long that Ron's chest spasmed in its need for air. He couldn't breathe, though. He could only watch for Cedric's reaction.  
  
Slowly, inexorably, Cedric's left eyebrow began to rise. The corner of his mouth followed it, until his bright expression was a pleased sort of smirk.  
  
"Is that so?" he asked.  
  
Ron supposed he would have nodded, or perhaps even spoken, but there was no time to do _anything_ before Cedric's left hand was threaded into the roots of his hair, behind his head, and his right hand was pressed into the small of Ron's back, bringing him close, and Cedric's mouth was where he'd never really believed it would be, _kissing_ him, opening and encouraging and welcoming Ron to take advantage of this fantasy made flesh.  
  
Dual impulses warred within Ron: one was to pay attention to every detail, to remember every moment lest it be the only one like it; the other was to surrender completely, to give into the sensation of Cedric's lips and tongue and fingers, to let himself be washed in the experience and to put aside thoughts of what the future might bring.  
  
Cedric took charge of Ron's decision, backing him up to the nearest wall and pressing the entire length of his body against Ron's so that his heat and every contour of bone and muscle could be felt through layers of clothing. Ron opened his eyes to see Cedric staring intensely down at him. It gave him the chance to see the look of purposeful hunger in Cedric's eyes as he put one hand along Ron's jaw, working his tongue inside Ron's mouth, and simultaneously grabbed one of Ron's hips in the other hand and ground against him. The rough stone wall dug painfully into Ron's head and back, but he moaned and tried to find useful places for his hands, and wriggled frantically against Cedric's body. His groin was pulsing so hard, he probably would have fallen if he hadn't been pinned to the wall. Each movement of Cedric's body against his made him cry out a bit, seeing bright lights at the corner of his vision. He'd never got off before except by touching himself, but he could tell he was getting close from the friction alone, and he needed _more_.  
  
As soon as he'd thought that, though, Cedric leaned against him more heavily and grew still. His eyes were still fixed on Ron's.  
  
Cedric's throat made a warm, purring sort of chuckling noise. "Brilliant," he breathed, drawing his head back far enough to look in Ron's eyes. "Alright, yeah? A bit of a surprise, but a good one?"  
  
Ron tried to think of something clever to respond, but his groin was aching and his mouth was too dry to speak. He was staring hungrily enough at Cedric's mouth that Cedric must have taken his response to be affirmative.  
  
"I have to get back," said Cedric quietly. "Fancy continuing this later? Say, tomorrow night, in the empty classroom down the Charms corridor? After supper?" He flashed Ron the sunnily genuine smile that had caught Ron's attention in the first place. Something about the situation gave it an additional connotation of naughtiness that Ron found intoxicating.  
  
Multiple responses, ranging from 'yes, please!' to 'why not NOW?!?' surged through Ron's head, but he could only nod slowly.  
  
Cedric smiled sunnily, gave a sexy sort of grunt and kissed Ron soundly once more. "Good," he said. "See you then." And with a wink and a wave, he was gone down the corridor.  
  
Ron fairly collapsed against the wall, panting, trying to will himself calm. He was so aroused, he was almost weeping.  
  
Of course, as soon as Cedric disappeared, Ron's mind went into overdrive, scrambling to make sense of what had just happened and immediately raising the question of whether it could all have been a very vivid daydream. Only the rawness of his lips gave a hint that it could be real.  
  
The next evening, then, he would know for sure. He'd waited most of his fourteen years; he could wait twenty-four hours longer.


	3. Part Two: Lost in Thought

  
Author's notes: Set during Goblet of Fire, so guess who the 'character death' is? Harry and Ron are 14/15 and Cedric is 17, which I'm calling 'underage' but could be considered 'chan' in some circles.  
  
This fic was beta'd by Copper Beech and read by Magicofisis, both of whom have my undying gratitude.  


* * *

Ron stumbled back to reality that night, finding it in the Gryffindor dormitories. One of the school barn owls waited for Harry in the fourth-years' bedchamber with a message that Ron knew was from Sirius. On his way up, one of the sixth-year Gryffindor prefects informed Ron, with an air of stuffy superiority she might have learned from Percy, that he and Harry would be serving their detentions with Snape the following evening.  
  
Normally, a detention with Snape would be improved by Harry's presence, but right now ...  
  
Harry walked into the dormitories shortly after Ron, looking put out, or possibly stuffily superior.  
  
"You've had an owl," Ron told him, and left the room as quickly as possible without looking back.  
  
Some part of Ron knew that the day would come when he would have to admit that he missed Harry. Hanging around with the twins and Lee was entertaining enough, to be sure, but it wasn't the _same_.  
  
He could live without Harry for one more day, though, and the possibility that one more day would bring Harry's admission that he'd sought this attention and excluded Ron _on purpose_ , as Ron was painfully sure Harry had done, was enough to keep Ron marching out through the portrait hole and on down the stairs into the echoing darkness of the school's corridors.  
  
He walked for what felt like hours. He didn't even pay attention to where he was going, aware as he was that getting lost in Hogwarts could be a permanent condition. Down a clean, torchlit, stone corridor, he began to hear voices, and soon ran into Ernie MacMillan, Hannah Abbott, Susan Bones and a handful of other Hufflepuffs from his year whose names he'd never bothered to learn. There was a blond bloke with a particularly haughty sneer whom Ron had never tolerated - he had some common name Ron couldn't be arsed to remember.  
  
The entire group was shooting Ron suspicious glares. He couldn't be sure what he'd done to earn their mistrust, until a familiar voice snuck up behind him and whispered in his ear.  
  
"Keen, aren't you? Looking for me so soon, and so close to the entrance to my house?"  
  
Ron span about to find himself nose-to-nose with Cedric, in all his glory. He'd spoken so softly that none of the rest could possibly have heard him, but his very presence and recognition of Ron took the bite out of their glares, and they turned away, heading down the corridor and around a corner. Dimly, Ron heard something heavy slide aside, then back into place, and the voices were silenced.  
  
"Couldn't wait until tomorrow night, then?" asked Cedric once they were gone. His tone was teasing, but with a gentle, playful lilt. Delight sparkled in his eyes, making Ron's blood rush south.  
  
Embarrassed that he'd ended up _here_ , of all places, at all times, Ron turned toward him, trying to form his protest, but Cedric caught him at the mouth and hips, intruding with his tongue and hands and fingers, sending Ron stumbling backwards into the nearest wall until he was panting, pressed up against stone and utterly enveloped in the searching, possessing touch of Cedric's lips and fingers and tongue and hands and knees and ... _oh, sweet Merlin_ ...  
  
Somewhere, far away, on the edge of Ron's consciousness, someone was moaning with pleasure. It wasn't until Cedric pulled back and regarded him with a grin that Ron realised the voice had been his own.  
  
"Come on, then," Cedric laughed, not waiting for a response. He grabbed Ron by the belt, dragging him back away from the place where the other Hufflepuffs had disappeared, into an alcove behind a heavy, velvet curtain. No light penetrated that space, and very little air or sound. It was as though lifting aside a barrier into a pocket out of time, where nothing could interrupt nor discover them.  
  
Cedric wasted no time, but tore at Ron's tie and shirt, digging his searching fingers into the tender flesh of his chest and stomach. Ron was still gasping at the contact, at the possibility that _any_ of this could be real, when Cedric opened his trousers and reached into his pants to take firm, controlling hold of him. The suddenness of contact, coupled with the enticing roughness of Cedric's Quidditch-calloused palms, made Ron cry out and throw his head back, banging it painfully into the rough stone of the wall. Cedric let out a soft, somewhat smug chuckle and began grasping and stroking Ron in a quick and demanding rhythm. Mind swimming, Ron let his hands fly up to his own head, pressing against his temples to try and keep his brain from flying apart.  
  
It didn't take long for Cedric to find Ron's hands, where they were resting by his head, and to guide one down to the most exciting place Ron could imagine putting it, against Cedric's swollen crotch, which rubbed eagerly against it. Cedric's free hand was opening his own trousers and pushing his pants aside, encouraging Ron's hand to venture inside, to mimic the impossibly amazing action that Cedric's hand was accomplishing on Ron's body. Just feeling his hand come into contact with the yieldingly firm smoothness and texture and weeping swollen bulging tip, Ron convulsed and cried out, and half-collapsed against the wall as Cedric grunted, squeezing the last spasms out of him.  
  
Ron sagged against the wall, slipping downward, hand still gripping what it had been gripping before. It didn't even occur to him to think about what he was doing before he had fallen to his knees and brought his lips to his fist, taking first the fleshy tip and then Cedric's full length into his mouth. It tasted salty and dry, like a neck might when its owner has got sweaty playing Quidditch and then wiped himself clean. Ron pursed his lips into a firm circle, sucking in, trying to swallow his grin as Cedric moaned deeply, sending vibrations through Ron's own throat and into his groin.  
  
Cedric's fingers found their way into Ron's hair, threading tightly, almost painfully, as he guided Ron's head forward and back, hips thrusting in and out, Ron trying to relax his throat against the inevitable gag reflex as he tried to take more and more of Cedric in through his mouth.  
  
When Cedric finally grunted and stilled, Ron's jaw was aching and his lips were raw from friction. He tried not to think of swallowing, but merely let Cedric's seed spill down his throat. For a moment, he could only hold himself close to his idol, nose buried in the thatch of musk-scented curls at Cedric's crotch, breathing him in.  
  
 _I'm really here_ , Ron had to tell himself, in order to believe it. _This has really happened._  
  
Feeling Cedric grown soft in his mouth, Ron massaged the wilting member with his lips and tongue, swallowing any remaining drops, continuing to nuzzle, then kiss, then nip and lick around Cedric's groin until firm hands on his face urged him to climb to his feet.  
  
"Merlin, you're fantastic," purred Cedric in his ear. "Wish I'd known sooner ... we could have had a lot more fun, all those summers."  
  
And with these words echoing in his ear, Ron felt a hot, wet mouth attack the sensitive pulse-point on his neck, licking and nipping and sending waves of arousal coursing back through him, when he thought he was already spent.  
  
It still didn't seem real, even with Cedric's teeth on his collarbone and the full, re-hardening weight of Cedric's body pressed fully against the length of Ron's own. It couldn't possibly be true that after so many years, Ron was finally here, being frotted by the one person who had always enthralled him, throughout his entire life.  
  
And then Cedric's lips and teeth and tongue found Ron's nipple, and he saw and heard and thought nothing but stars for the next several minutes.  
  
When Cedric's mouth found its way back to his earlobe, and had worked its magic for several more minutes, Ron was achingly hard again. He had grasped Cedric's hips and begun to grind against them when Cedric suddenly backed away half an inch and the crushing heat of full-body contact was stolen away.  
  
"This was a lot of fun, wasn't it?" murmured Cedric in a grumbling sort of purr. "Thanks, Ron. You're a great kid, aren't you?"  
  
And with that pronouncement, he slipped back through the curtain and was gone.  
  
Ron sagged against the wall, throbbing and aching for more. The word 'kid' pulsed in his mind, wanting to spoil his good mood, but he pushed the thought away. Cedric's new attitude - a bit arrogant, a bit superior, but really still the same Cedric under it all - made their stolen moments even hotter, made his breath run even shorter.  
  
He slumped there a long time, trying to collect himself so he could make the walk back to Gryffindor Tower. By the time he could find his wits again and emerge into the corridor, there was no sign of anyone at all.


	4. Part Three: Seeking the Seeker

  
Author's notes: Set during Goblet of Fire, so guess who the 'character death' is? Harry and Ron are 14/15 and Cedric is 17, which I'm calling 'underage' but could be considered 'chan' in some circles.  
  
This fic was beta'd by Copper Beech and read by Magicofisis, both of whom have my undying gratitude.  


* * *

Ron rushed through his supper the following evening, made a flimsy excuse to the twins, who weren't bothered anyway, and rushed off to the empty classroom Cedric had mentioned. He didn't even look for Cedric as he passed the Hufflepuff table, but of course he already knew he was there. It was impossible, these days, for Cedric to enter a room without Ron taking notice.  
  
He had no idea whether Cedric would still meet him, after what had happened behind the curtain the night before, and especially after that cow Rita Skeeter had run her article and not mentioned Cedric at all. If there was even the slightest chance, though, he had to be there. He would wait all night, even skip his detention with Snape and hang the consequences, if necessary.  
  
As it turned out, it almost _was_ necessary. Ron was sure he was there over an hour, growing colder and more bored, and simultaneously more and more aroused at the possibility that Cedric might turn up at last. He was starting to consider locking the door and wanking in the corner so he wouldn't have to walk back to Gryffindor with this giant, obvious bulge in his robes, when the door creaked open and Ron caught his breath.  
  
Cedric's face broke into a shining grin when he saw Ron waiting there. Ron felt suddenly naked and exposed, despite his layers of clothing, when Cedric's hungry eyes raked over him.  
  
Without a word, Cedric closed and locked the door, then crossed the room in a few, long strides and tackled Ron back onto the large desk on which he'd been sitting. Ron was still trying to catch his breath while Cedric was snogging the life out of him, tearing both of their clothes in the hurry to get them out of the way, plunging his hand into Ron's pants and tugging forcefully so that Ron barked out a harsh cry of pleasure and surprise and impatience. Cedric's devious grin captured Ron's attention for the moment it took before both shirts were wide open, t-shirts pushed up to necks and trousers and pants down to knees, and Cedric's hands were pinning Ron's hands up by his head, and his hips were - _oh Merlin, yes, more, ohhh_ \- digging against Ron's, rubbing and slipping in the increasing moisture, and Ron was trying to find some purchase for his heels on the too-short desk so he could thrust back against Cedric, and the heat of their bare skin together was boiling his brain, he was sure, because there was nothing he could think but to latch his lips and teeth to the side of Cedric's perfect, strong neck, and buck as best he could, weeping in frustration as Cedric pounded against him, until finally, finally, finally, something snapped in his head and he felt himself release, and felt Cedric pound harder for the minute or two until he, too, fell quiet.  
  
Time stayed still for a long time, nothing moving but Cedric's chest against Ron's as they both breathed slowly in the dry, draughty classroom. Cedric's hands slowly relaxed, but never entirely let go of Ron's wrists, so Ron didn't feel invited to wrap his arms around Cedric's hard, muscular back. Instead, Ron buried his nose in the warm place by Cedric's ear and breathed him in, letting himself take note of every inch of his body that was touching some part of Cedric's, hoping impossibly that this would not be the last time, because he'd waited too long for this all to happen so fast and to _end_.  
  
As though hearing Ron's thoughts, Cedric raised his head and looked at him.  
  
"You haven't told anyone, have you?" he asked him, calmly but bluntly.  
  
Ron shook his head, eyes wide.  
  
"Good," said Cedric, softening his expression into something gentler, like a smile. "It's not that I'd mind, normally. It's only with all of this Triwizard business, and that Skeeter woman and the Prophet ... it could get difficult, you know?"  
  
Ron nodded, feeling more and more stupid for his inability to keep up his end of the conversation, so he managed to cough out the word, "Yeah."  
  
"Alright," said Cedric, with a widening grin. "Because if you can keep quiet about it, then maybe we could do this again, yeah?"  
  
Ron could think of nothing to say to that, because his own wide grin had already made the answer for him.  
  
And so they met, the next several nights. It started the same way, always, with Ron waiting and Cedric arriving a little late and attacking him, but each day they stayed a little longer and began talking. It was as though they were actually getting to know one another, becoming more than a couple of horny blokes but rather something like proper boyfriends.  
  
 _Boyfriends_. The very thought of actually being Cedric Diggory's boyfriend, after all these years, made Ron so happy that nothing else around him seemed to matter.  
  
Ron was so excited, it was all he could do to remember to be grumpy through detention with Snape that first night, or that he was fighting with his best mate, so everyone else would be expecting him to spend all his time scowling and would think it odd if he were walking around with a stupid smile on his face.  
  
Then everything went to bollocks, and it was all the fault of that stupid article.  
  
Cedric always maintained that he didn't mind not being mentioned, and Harry kept walking around scowling and pretending he'd had nothing to do with it, and Hermione acted proud and above it all, and Malfoy was an even bigger git that usual, and Ron began to wish the whole Tournament had never happened.  
  
One Saturday, nearly two weeks after the article had appeared, Ron had tromped off to Hogsmeade with his brothers. He'd seen Hermione in the village, but she'd mostly ignored him. He could tell by the way she kept talking out of the corner of her mouth, even when she appeared to be alone, that Harry was there with her, wearing his Cloak. Ron had tried not to care, distracting himself by watching Cedric laugh and joke, surrounded by admirers from Hufflepuff and even a few Ravenclaws. He wished he could be there, in his rightful place by Cedric's side, no matter how it would look for Harry Potter's best mate to be fawning over the competition. Ron assumed most people could tell he and Harry weren't speaking these days, anyway, and it drove him mad to watch all those giggling girls draping themselves over Cedric, and Cedric _letting_ them, as though any bird could make him cry out and squirm the way he had the night before under the patient ministrations of Ron's mouth and hands.  
  
That night, Cedric had showed up much later than ever before, looking not at all interested in taking off any of his clothes. Instead of tackling Ron, he'd stood quietly by the closed door and told him they couldn't go on. Ron had nodded and blinked back the stupid, childish tears that had tried to form, and half-heard Cedric explaining that this Skeeter woman was dangerously sneaky and Ron wasn't doing a good enough job of hiding his feelings and if Skeeter had even the slightest inkling what was going on with them, Cedric would be outed to the entire country, and it had to stop, _now_.  
  
Ron wasn't sure what time he'd stumbled back to Gryffindor Tower, only that it had been a long time after Cedric had left before he'd been able to move at all. It couldn't have been that late, after all, though, because the common room was still half-full when he got upstairs. Hermione and Harry were conspiring about something in the corner - who knew, maybe they _were_ shagging, anything was possible now that he was so out of the loop - so Ron passed them by and dragged himself up the stairs and into bed.  
  
After closing the curtains, Ron lay awake for hours. He heard his dormmates come upstairs and get ready for sleep, but he didn't feel even slightly drowsy. He felt moderately nauseous and his head hurt, and he wanted very much to escape into slumber, but it simply wouldn't come.  
  
More than anything, Ron wished he could talk to Harry about what had happened. It was one thing to be angry at Harry for excluding him, and to think Harry was being a right git for saying all that bollocks to that Skeeter cow to make everyone feel sorry for him, but now Ron _needed_ his best mate, and nothing else seemed to matter as much as the fact that his heart was broken and the only one who had a chance of making it feel any better was right there in the next bed.  
  
Only he wasn't.  
  
After drawing his curtains aside, Ron sat in shock for a moment at seeing Harry's bed empty. It had to be after one in the morning, so where was he? Not shagging Hermione, Ron hoped. For all that Skeeter woman had made of it, and for all he was feeling forlorn and left out, Ron was pretty sure he knew both of his friends well enough to be sure that they didn't fancy each other in the slightest. If he was wrong about that, then maybe he really didn't know anything about his surroundings, after all.  
  
Ron stole silently out of bed and crept down the stairs toward the common room. He heard a murmuring voice which, as he approached, sounded more and more like Harry's. He thought he heard another, deeper voice, so it clearly wasn't Hermione there with him, but then he stumbled slightly and landed heavily on the next two stairs, and everything went dead downstairs.  
  
When he rounded the last turn of the spiral staircase and emerged into the room, Ron saw Harry hunched by the fire, glaring angrily up at him.  
  
No one else was there.  
  
"Who were you talking to?" he asked, feeling stupid and awkward. He'd wanted so much to find Harry, to talk to him about Cedric, but now Harry's face was twisted into an ugly scowl and Ron was suddenly certain that everything was ruined between them.  
  
"What's that got to do with you?" Harry snarled, startling Ron into getting his own hackles up. "What are you doing down here at this time of night?"  
  
His tone was so confrontational, so unwelcoming, that there was no chance Ron would be able to tell him what he'd come here to say. Ron took a deep breath to calm himself, trying to keep from making the situation any worse.  
  
"I just wondered where you - " he tried, but it seemed useless, so he broke off, shrugging. "Nothing. I'm going back to bed."  
  
Ron didn't even get a chance to turn around, though, before Harry shouted, "Just thought you'd come nosing around, did you?" His eyes were bright with anger, shoulders set square as though preparing for an attack.  
  
Ron had no idea what Harry was on about, but he'd had quite enough. All he'd wanted was to talk with his best mate about one of the worst things that had ever happened to him, and instead everything was getting more horrible by the moment.  
  
"Sorry about that," he snapped, feeling his face go red. "Should've realised you didn't want to be disturbed. I''ll let you get on with practising for your next interview in peace." In his blind rage, he poured all of his anger and frustration and hurt into the word 'interview,' cracking it like a whip.  
  
He'd barely had a chance to realise what he'd said, when Harry bent down, picked up one of those idiotic badges the Creeveys had been fooling with, and hurled it at Ron's face, striking him painfully in the forehead.  
  
"There you go," crowed Harry. "Something for you to wear on Tuesday. You might even have a scar now, if you're lucky ... that's what you want, isn't it?"  
  
Ron could only stand there, staring at him in shock. He and Harry had never so much as shoved each other except in jest, and now Harry was throwing sharp objects at his head, and striding angrily across the room toward him as though he were about to pound him, as well. But when he got to where Ron was standing, Harry only glared menacingly as though daring Ron to punch him, and stormed off up the stairs.  
  
Still in shock, Ron failed to move so much as an eyelash for several more minutes. His forehead stung and felt as though it might be bleeding a bit. Why in Merlin's name would Harry think he'd want a scar? Did Harry think Ron was jealous? What could possibly have given him that idea? Ron knew Harry hated being famous ... or at least, he'd _thought_ he knew that, before the Triwizard Tournament had come along. In any case, Ron never wanted to be famous like Harry was. Some recognition of some sort would be nice, sure, something to make him stand out as more than Bill or Charlie or Percy's kid brother, or Famous Harry Potter's best friend. But what good would it do him, then, having a scar just like Harry's?  
  
Finally, after several minutes, Ron slowly began to collapse into the nearest chair. He sank low, thinking about Cedric and the Prophet and Hermione and Harry and everything he'd hated about this entire school year so far.  
  
He wished he'd been wearing something more than his stupid, too-small maroon pyjamas, so that he could leave the Tower and try and find Cedric and beg him to give it another chance. He wished he had got better at Summoning Charms, so that he could steal Harry's Invisibility Cloak and sneak away, perhaps just leave Hogwarts completely and pretend this whole sodding year had never happened.  
  
Ron drew his knees up to his face, wrapping his arms tightly around his legs. He tilted his head, resting one cheek on one of his knees, and stared into the fire until his eyes were seared by the brightness, and then he stared some more. Lacking any better ideas for what to do, he stayed there, curled in the chair, until the fire had burned down to embers and his joints were cold and stiff and the sky was even lightening slightly outside the windows.  
  
Sure everyone would be asleep, he crept upstairs and hid himself inside the curtains of his bed. If he was lucky, no one would bother him all day.


	5. Part Four: Lost and Found

  
Author's notes: Set during Goblet of Fire, so guess who the 'character death' is? Harry and Ron are 14/15 and Cedric is 17, which I'm calling 'underage' but could be considered 'chan' in some circles.  
  
This fic was beta'd by Copper Beech and read by Magicofisis, both of whom have my undying gratitude.  


* * *

A few days later, Ron almost lost Harry forever, then got him back for good.

It was a near thing, with the Horntail and the Firebolt and the egg, but Harry had been brilliant and brave, and Ron had almost burst into tears, watching him. It wasn't that Ron was usually so prone to embarrassing, girly displays of emotion. It was only that he'd had such a hard time of it, and had come so close to making up with Harry such a short time before seeing him in mortal peril.

Oddly enough, Ron hadn't been as affected by watching Cedric, even when the dragon had lost interest in the rock he'd Transfigured into a labrador, and singed Cedric pretty badly. He'd been relieved when Cedric got past it and grabbed his egg, of course, and had cheered along with the others. Watching Cedric had simply been a little too painful, yet, so Ron supposed he'd managed to make himself act like just another spectator.

But when Harry had been on his broom, flying toward that giant Horntail, Ron's heart had raced like a rabbit's, and he hadn't been able to inhale properly until he'd known Harry was safe.

As soon as it was over, he'd run to find Harry, and had got to the tent right behind Hermione. He'd been afraid of what he would find, after seeing the Horntail's spike dig through Harry's shoulder. He could barely feel his fingers or toes, and everything looked as though he were seeing the world through a pale grey haze.

But when he'd got inside the medical tent, and seen that Harry was alright, he could only watch Hermione throw herself at him with relief. The whole time, Harry was looking at him - at _him_ , like he was the only one who mattered - and Ron knew he must look as scared as he'd felt.

He didn't even pay attention to Cedric's silhouette through the canvas, although he heard him hissing with pain as Madam Pomfrey worked on his burn. All Ron cared about was that Harry was safe, and that he looked happy to see him.

Ron took a deep breath and tried to will away the profound, residual fear he still felt, and managed to say, "Harry, whoever put your name in that Goblet - I - " and his voice had caught in his throat, so he'd had to swallow before he could continue "- I reckon they're trying to do you in!"

He'd felt the world go still as he waited to be forgiven, waited for _anything_ , so he wasn't entirely surprised when Harry said, "Caught on, have you? Took you long enough."

Harry's voice was so cold, Ron was afraid it was too late, that he'd never be forgiven after all. He was dimly aware of Hermione looking nervously between them, but as important as she was to him, in that moment only Harry mattered.

Ron realised he'd been _wrong_ , all this time, in his assumptions about how Harry had come to be a Triwizard Champion. The whole bloody row had been his own bloody fault. Harry hadn't helped, obviously, but it had been Ron who had caused it all, by believing that Harry could lie to him, could exclude him from what seemed such an exciting opportunity.

Without knowing what he could possibly say, Ron opened his mouth to babble out some sort of apology, when Harry interrupted him.

"It's OK. Forget it."

"No, I shouldn't've -"

" _Forget it_."

And they'd grinned at each other, and Hermione had burst into tears like the frightful nutter she was, and everything had been fine again.

Having Harry back made everything better. It even made Cedric feel a bit more like a distant memory, even though he seemed to be everywhere Ron looked, and Harry even mentioned him sometimes when he talked late at night about his fears and worries for the remaining two Tasks and the clue inside the egg.

When the Yule Ball had been announced, Ron had planned to ignore the whole thing, since he couldn't precisely turn up with a bloke on his arm, and Harry had to find a partner so they couldn't simply go together.

He _did_ want to go with Hermione - even though Ron primarily fancied blokes, there were some girls who made him take notice, and Hermione was quickly inching her way up the short list. Of course even queer blokes were susceptible to Veela charms, as it turned out, so his brain went to mush every time Fleur Delacour was around. But Hermione, she was really as perfect for him as a girl ever could be.

He couldn't understand why she insisted she wouldn't go to the Ball with him.

Hermione turning him down wasn't the worst shock Ron would receive in the days before the Ball, as it happened. No, that honour was spared for the the moment that Ron learned that Harry had asked a girl - _his_ Harry had actually asked an actual girl! - and that, to add insult to injury, she had turned him down because she was already being escorted to the Ball by none other than Ron's ex-boyfriend-or-whatever-he'd-been, Cedric sodding Diggory.

That night, in the dormitories, Ron had waited until everyone else was asleep and then had crawled over onto Harry's bed, pulled the curtains closed, and poked Harry awake.

"Wha - Ron? Whadyawan'?"

"Huh?"

"What do you want, Ron?" Harry enunciated a bit more clearly as he sat halfway up, fumbling outside the curtain for his glasses.

Ron looked at Harry, so sleepy-faced in the light of Ron's _lumos_ ed wand, and took a deep breath before speaking.

"Did you really ask Cho Chang to go to the Yule Ball with you?"

Harry gave him a suspicious sort of half-scowl.

"Don't you dare take the piss," he responded coolly. "I've fancied her a long time, alright? I can't believe I actually asked her." This last sort of tapered away into an awed whisper as Harry's eyes skittered away into a dark corner of the bed.

Ron nodded, trying to ignore the knots in his stomach. What did that cow have, that made both of the most important blokes in Ron's life want to be with her, rather than be with him? "And you're sure she's going with Ced- that is, with Diggory?"

Harry nodded, eyeing Ron again.

It didn't escape Ron's notice that Harry's lips somehow looked softer and sweeter than they normally did in the daylight. Nor did he fail to take in the deep, sea-glass green of Harry's eyes behind his oversized spectacles. In fact, at the moment, everything about Harry appeared astonishingly, irresistibly attractive to Ron, and he knew he had to say something now, or risk driving himself utterly mad by never having another chance.

Ron took a deep breath and leaned forward. "Then we're both out of luck, aren't we?"

"Why?" Harry looked as confused as Ron had assumed he would.

"Well, you don't get to have Cho," he answered slowly, steeling himself against Harry's reaction to the rest of the sentence, " ... and I don't get to have Cedric."

Harry blinked, opened his mouth as if to speak, then blinked again and closed it. He repeated the entire sequence once more after that.

"You ... Cedric?" he stammered at last.

"We had a ... sort of a thing, for a week or two before the First Task."

Harry blinked again. "Really?" His eyes lit up. "Then he doesn't really fancy Cho, so I could ..." but he must have seen Ron's face fall, because he trailed quickly off into silence. "... or does he?" asked Harry at last.

Ron gave a miserable shrug. "Dunno," he said. This wasn't going at all the way he'd hoped.

Both sat silently for a very long time, in the oddly dim and unflickering light of Ron's wand.

After a while, Ron started to realise that Harry was looking at him, not only as though waiting for him to speak, but as though trying to see him all over again.

He was working up his courage to ask Harry what he was thinking, when Harry leaned forward suddenly and kissed Ron forcefully on the mouth. Ron didn't stop for a moment to wonder what Harry's reasons might be, or to analyse anything at all about the situation, but dropped his wand, plunging them both into darkness, so he could fling his arms around Harry's slight, pyjama-clad frame. Harry's momentum had been greater than either of them noted at first, so Ron was already in the midst of falling backward with Harry on top of him before he had properly processed what was happening.

Harry was so much smaller than Cedric, it was almost like having nothing at all on top of him, except that Harry's sweet, soft mouth was working against Ron's and the edges of Harry's glasses were poking at Ron's face and the flimsy layers of their pyjamas transmitted every bit of heat from Harry's body into his. The thin fabric left no contour to the imagination, either, so that Harry's bony hips ground into Ron's lower belly, along with a much larger, more insistent bulge.

Ron grunted and shifted and tilted his head down so he could keep kissing Harry while aligning their groins for the most satisfying friction. He lost himself in Harry's mouth, struck suddenly by the intensity of his feelings: this was more than an infatuation, more even than a lifelong obsession, this was his _Harry_ , and he was kissing him and holding him, and Ron squeezed Harry more tightly in his arms for the sheer joy of having him there.

Harry let out a quiet sort of happy laugh, pulling away just enough that he could murmur toward Ron's ear, "Who needs girls, anyway?"

Ron laughed and rolled him over, pushing both of their pyjama bottoms down far enough that he could take hold of both of them in one large, strong-fingered hand, and stroked until they moaned and cried out together, making a mess of themselves and Harry's bedding, and confirming that they had both found what they really wanted most in all the world.


	6. Part Five: While Visions of Ravenclaws Danced in Their Heads

  
Author's notes: Set during Goblet of Fire, so guess who the 'character death' is? Harry and Ron are 14/15 and Cedric is 17, which I'm calling 'underage' but could be considered 'chan' in some circles.  
  
This fic was beta'd by Copper Beech and read by Magicofisis, both of whom have my undying gratitude.  


* * *

On Christmas Eve, all was quiet in Gryffindor Tower. Neville and Seamus were snoring contentedly, and Dean was breathing deeply and almost silently, each in his own bed. A fire crackled brightly in the hearth, and snow fell gently and silently in the moonlit world outside.

Behind the curtains, Ron and Harry were nestled all snug in Harry's bed, covered only in the blankets and touching lightly and reverently as they drifted toward sleep. A sheen of sweat still clung to Harry's chest, due to the heartracing excitement Ron had shown him a few minutes earlier. His ribcage had barely returned to its normal motion from the heaving gasps Harry had made as Ron had teased and tickled and tweaked and touched until Harry had trembled and tensed and toppled over into Ron's waiting arms. Ron could still taste Harry's tongue in his mouth, feel the impression of his teeth against his lips. Now, as his brushed his fingertips over the goosepimples that sprang into relief all over Harry's arms and torso, Ron thanked Merlin for the opportunity to feel this _whatever_ that he was feeling, that made his heart warm itself from inside and his cheeks hurt from smiling.

They had spent some time together nearly every night since that first time, and each time they lingered longer after wearing themselves out, exploring each other's bodies and faces through touch, taste and smell. Ron had already memorised the tiny difference between the shapes of Harry's earlobes, the scent of his neck after he'd got a bit sweaty, and the sound of the tiny moans he made when Ron brushed his nipples with his fingertips.

Ron had never paid attention to the details of a person - even himself, even Cedric - in quite this way before. He was utterly enthralled with the shimmer of the tiny, iridescent hairs that adorned Harry's chest and chin. It seemed impossible that even a wizard could be this _magical_.

Knackered, but not yet entirely sleepy, Ron toyed idly with a few strands of Harry's hair, waking him from a brief doze.

"Mmm," grunted Harry happily, and wriggled forward to kiss him.

Ron breathed Harry in as their lips met, relishing the softness their kisses always had once they'd spent their energy. He loved the excitement of the beginnings of their evenings together, too, but there was something that felt so much _closer_ about this kind of kissing.

Harry draped a wrist over Ron's neck and caressed his jaw with his palm. "Can we skip the sodding Ball tomorrow night?" he murmured hopefully.

"Yeah," placated Ron, knowing it wasn't true, but also knowing that he wasn't really _lying_ , since neither of them was expected to believe it. He would never _lie_ to Harry, after all.

"Good," said Harry, playing along. He increased the tension on the hand that held Ron's head, scooting his entire body even closer for a tighter cuddle. His voice was muffled with sleep as he continued, "Jus' stay here. Spen' Chrsmss w' you."

"Yeah," said Ron again, wishing he could make it true by saying it enough times.

Ron snuggled closer, wrapping Harry in his arms, and tried to get to sleep. Only now that Harry had mentioned the Ball, Ron found his brain gnawing at the question of Hermione and her mystery partner.

He fidgeted and shifted, and Harry opened one eye.

"Shstllwntllyoo, mm?" Harry mumbled. Unintelligible as his words were, Ron started slightly as he understood the meaning: _She still won't tell you, huh?_

Harry always seemed to _know_ just what Ron was thinking.

"She _doesn't_ have a partner," Ron growled for the thousandth time.

Harry opened the other eye and pulled back far enough to focus on Ron's face. Considering Harry's myopia without his glasses, this wasn't very far. "You want her to be going with you," said Harry flatly.

Ron gave the awkward, snuggled-close-in-bed version of a half-shrug.

"Only I don't see why she still won't admit there's no one else, and agree to go with me."

" _You've_ agreed to go with Padma Patil," Harry reminded him. "It's a little late to be changing partners, even if Hermione actually needed one."

Ron scowled. "Whose side are _you_ on? Anyway, don't you mind that Ginny's said yes to Neville? Didn't you want to go with her, and instead you're stuck with that Trelawney-worshipping nutter, Parvati?"

Harry narrowed his eyes and turned part way onto his back. "I _wanted_ to go with _Cho_ ," he told the ceiling.

The words hit Ron hard, somewhere high in the gut, and he almost literally choked a bit from the impact. Harry wanted to go with Cho. _Cedric_ wanted to go with Cho. Hermione wanted to go with ... well, someone who wasn't Ron.

Ron swallowed his self-pity like a bitter pill. It was pathetic, feeling sorry for himself because some bird he'd hardly met was the only one willing to tolerate his company, and even she would probably shun him once she'd seen his hideous, mouldy robes.

He started to roll away from Harry, the same way Harry had rolled away from him, but the arm around his waist grew tight and stopped him.

"I _wanted_ to go with Cho," said Harry again, a little more life and a slightly different emphasis now in his voice. "That was what I wanted _before_. Now ... I wish I could go with you."

Blinking stupidly, Ron could only stare at Harry. The possibility of being together - in _public_ \- hadn't even occurred to him. "But we have to take the Patils," popped out of his mouth, for lack of anything useful to say in response.

Harry nodded. Ron was looking at him again, so he could see the dimness creep into the naked, green eyes. "We have to take the Patils," he echoed dully, and pulled Ron closer, burying his face between Ron's chin and the pillow.

He didn't say anything else, or lift his head, all night.


	7. Part Six: Equally Distracted

  
Author's notes: Set during Goblet of Fire, so guess who the 'character death' is? Harry and Ron are 14/15 and Cedric is 17, which I'm calling 'underage' but could be considered 'chan' in some circles.  
  
This fic was beta'd by Copper Beech and read by Magicofisis, both of whom have my undying gratitude.  


* * *

Ron had been absolutely, completely correct about the Yule Ball: it was one of the most miserable nights of his life.

He had to watch Cedric dance with Cho, and Harry dance with Parvati while trying to pretend he wasn't staring at Cho, and Hermione smile invitingly at Krum all night, and ... well, his fannish admiration of Krum was now thoroughly in question, to say the least.

To top it off, he couldn't even seem to have a proper conversation with Hermione about where her priorities lay, even when they were back in the relative privacy of the Gryffindor common room.

"Well, you know what the answer is, then, don't you??" she screamed into his surprised face. "Next time there's a ball, ask me before someone else does, and not as a last resort!"

Face flushed and eyes burning, she treated him to a glare that could melt glass before storming away up the stairs to the girls' dormitories.

Sensing someone behind him, Ron turned around and found Harry standing there. There was a blankness to his expression that looked like an accusation in its emptiness.

"Well, that just proves - " he babbled immediately, in his own defence, " - totally missed the point ..."

But Harry was still staring at him, an odd mixture of jealousy and shock and confusion and resignation in his eyes.

Ron's own eyes suddenly came over heavy and his exhaustion hit him in a wave. He stumbled backwards a step or two, giving Harry a look that he hoped would be seen as an invitation, and turned to heave himself up the stairs.

Since the other three were either asleep or absent, Ron tore his revolting dress robes off himself the moment he got to the dormitory. He was still rummaging in his trunk for a t-shirt when he felt Harry's hands smooth over his bare back.

"Alright?" murmured Harry into his ear, making delicious shivers run up and down his spine and race directly to his groin.

"Mental, that one," replied Ron offhandedly as he turned to capture Harry's soft lips. Harry made a skeptical noise in his throat as Ron began to kiss him, but the sound turned to a groan of impatience and Harry's hands slid over Ron's chest and shoulders on either side until their bodies were pressed together and their breath and pulses began to go short and quick.

They'd almost forgotten where they were when a clumsy thump against the door made them spring apart, barely in time to avoid Seamus and Neville stumbling into an awkward scene. Neville glared at Ron and muttered something about Ginny, but Ron was working too hard on hiding the tent in his shorts and couldn't stand up to make him repeat it. He'd have to remember to ask later.

Harry, meanwhile, was slipping out of his gorgeous, bottle-green dress robes that made his eyes shine and had caught Ron's gaze all night. Ron studiously did not stare as Harry shrugged out of his shirt and slid off his trousers. He did, however, notice the quick, final glance Harry gave him before disappearing behind his curtains.

It seemed to take Seamus and Neville _forever_ to settle down and get into their respect beds. Even once they were there, Seamus kept breaking into the chorus of a recent hit by the Weird Sisters and Neville kept throwing his pillow at him, Summoning it back clumsily, and throwing it again.

Ron really did wonder what had happened with Neville and Ginny during the course of the evening, to make Neville appear so put out. The more he had time to think about it, though, the more he got the idea he should be asking _Ginny_ , not Neville.

He would have a bit of a chat with his baby sister in the morning.

Finally, the mutterings and muffled thumps desisted, replaced with the duet of snores that had accompanied so many of Ron's late nights with Harry. By now, Ron was sure Dean must be already sleeping, and by focusing his attention, was able to discern the much softer sound of deep, peaceful breathing coming from the fifth bed.

Silently, Ron crept from behind his curtains, following the request he'd seen in Harry's final goodnight glance, and tiptoed over. When he looked in, he found Harry lying splayed on one side, glasses still on but askew, mouth misshapenly open and emitting soft grunts with each breath. Ron eased himself in next to Harry, gently removed his glasses and put them on the bedside table, then wrapped his arms around him, pulling him close enough to bury his nose in Harry's hair.

He woke an hour or two later - or perhaps it was only a few minutes - to feel Harry's lips nipping their way down his chest, which was painfully cold everywhere it wasn't being heated by Harry's breath This was probably because his t-shirt was pushed up to his neck, held there by one of Harry's hands while the other dipped tantalisingly in and out of the waistband of his shorts. Ron let out an appreciative groan to let Harry know he was awake and cooperative, simultaneously bucking his hips up and forward to meet Harry's touch. He gasped when he made contact, starting to shudder almost immediately.

Harry let out his own grunt of happiness and pulled Ron tightly against him, revealing that Harry had already rid himself of every stitch of clothing. Ron scuffed his hands roughly down Harry's back, grabbing his arse in both hands and pinning their bodies together as though he could devour him with his touch alone. Harry grappled with Ron's shorts, pushing them down until Ron could kick them away, then tearing Ron's t-shirt off in his impatience. Ron's eyes flew wide, but Harry muttered something about promising to _Reparo_ it later, and Ron's brain was too starved of blood to be bothered much, anyway.

Under the heavy blankets, their skin was on fire, and when Harry thrust his tongue against Ron's neck at the same moment that he thrust his groin against Ron's hips, Ron had to bite down, hard, on his lip to keep from crying out in the darkness.

He couldn't help but think of that first time in the classroom with Cedric, the way he needed to writhe and to pound, and ached for release which was so close and so elusive, while Harry's delicious body knocked against him in an accelerating rhythm, until Ron threw a leg over Harry's hips out of desperation, rolled half onto him and hammered against him until he felt Harry's fingernails dig into his shoulder and a splash of brightness exploded across his vision and a low, guttural cry escaped his throat.

Harry was still working his hips as Ron slowed down, and he tried to continue, but he suddenly felt so raw and sensitive that it hurt too much and he had to pull away. Harry moaned desperately, trying to drag him back, but Ron replaced his body with his hand, hoping it would be enough.

Harry whimpered, his face contorting into a wince in the half-light. Ron knew it could hurt if he got too close, and didn't quite make it. Without thinking, Ron squirmed his way down as if to kiss Harry's hurt away, and in a way that's what he did, only he was opening his mouth, taking Harry inside ....

Harry tasted of salt, like Cedric had, only with something more, probably because Ron had finished already. He tried not to think about it, too, much, but pursed his lips and sucked hard, hearing a hissing intake of breath that he assumed was encouragement. He covered the corners of Harry's hipbones with his broad hands and sucked again, eliciting a deep groan, this time. Harry's hips began to buck forward and his hands drifted to somewhere on Ron's shoulders, not gripping and demanding like Cedric had, just _there_.

Ron wished he could stop thinking about Cedric. He was with Harry now, and it was all he could ever have wanted. Why did Cedric's face keep swimming to mind? Ron closed his eyes against the image licked and relaxed his throat and took Harry in as deep as he could, straining his neck to suck harder and harder until Harry cried out and filled Ron's throat with wave after wave.

For a long time, both of them stayed still. Harry's breathing quietly returned to a slower pace while Ron pressed his face close to Harry's body, breathing in the heavy musk of his scent. This was the first time Ron had used his mouth on Harry, and he felt there should be a somberness, a significance to the event. He hadn't planned it or prepared himself mentally for it; they hadn't talked about it; but it had happened, and it seemed as though it should be _important_.

Nudging Ron's head gently with one hand, Harry brought Ron up to face him. His eyes were dark with gratitude and somberness.

"I think Cedric hit on me tonight," said Harry softly, when he opened his mouth.

Ron froze. So he hadn't been the only one thinking of Cedric.

"I was going to tell you as soon as I got back to the Tower," babbled Harry over Ron's useless silence, "but you and Hermione were shouting at each other, and I didn't have a chance."

Still incapable of thinking of a response, Ron could only add a weak nod.

When he found his voice, all he could manage to say was, "I thought he was with Cho?"

Harry scowled, but shrugged. "I thought so, too," he admitted. "Only remember how he stopped me as we were leaving the Ball?"

Ron remembered. He remembered Cedric looking at him as though he were in the way of Important Business, and a bit as though he were in the way, in general. Ron's gut had told him Cedric would try to take Harry from him, but he hadn't wanted to believe it, so he'd shrugged and headed up the stairs alone, where he'd got into that row with Hermione.

He gave a muffled grunt to indicate that Harry should continue.

"Well, he said I should take a bath."

Ron's eyebrows must have disappeared into his fringe, they flew up so fast.

"But you're perfectly clean ..." he protested weakly.

Harry grinned at him. "I _was_ , anyway," he replied, giving a sort of sideways nod that referred to the mess they'd made of the bedding. "Seriously, though, he said I should take a bath, and the prefect bathroom is a good place, and he gave me the password. Said I should take my egg."

"So he was only giving you a clue!" Ron was so relieved, he seized Harry tightly, so happy that he suddenly felt ready for another go.

Harry looked dubious. "I don't know, Ron. You didn't see his face when he said it. I mean, you're the one who's been with him. Maybe he's only going with Cho in order to cover for himself, so no one will guess he fancies blokes."

Ron scowled. "You'd like that, wouldn't you?"

Confusion passed over Harry's face briefly before it cleared. "It wouldn't matter to _me_ , Ron. I already have what I want."

"Yeah," muttered Ron, not entirely convinced that Harry was being completely honest with either of them.

Harry buried his face in the crook of Ron's neck, sighing deeply. "I wish there were something I could do to make you believe you're the most important person in my life," he said quietly.

There was no response for that, so Ron closed his eyes and pulled Harry against him. They fell asleep that way, a warm, naked tangle of limbs.


	8. Part Seven: Food for Thought

  
Author's notes: Set during Goblet of Fire, so guess who the 'character death' is? Harry and Ron are 14/15 and Cedric is 17, which I'm calling 'underage' but could be considered 'chan' in some circles.  
  
This fic was beta'd by Copper Beech and read by Magicofisis, both of whom have my undying gratitude.  


* * *

The next month or two trudged by, with one thing or another always popping up to make Ron's life a little more miserable than it really had to be. First, there was that Skeeter cow causing problems again, this time for Hagrid. Second, there was Hermione, who kept badgering Harry about the clue, and neither Harry nor Ron was willing to tell her about Cedric's hint and why neither of them wanted Harry to try it. Third, and related to the previous problem, there was the fact that Ron and Harry still hadn't told Hermione about their relationship, and that they both felt weird keeping her in the dark, but that they felt even weirder about telling her. Finally, Cedric seemed to pop up wherever Ron or Harry went, often with Cho (which made Harry scowl, despite his protestations that he didn't care about her so much anymore), but always with an expression that made Ron's skin crawl in a disturbingly delicious manner.

Harry seemed pretty miserable, himself, and it was getting worse the closer they got to the Second Task. Ron knew he hadn't worked out the clue (despite having told Hermione that he had), and that he was getting closer and closer to caving in and trying the prefects' bathroom.

Ron still slept in Harry's bed almost every night, but more and more was going unspoken between them. They didn't have to say anything; Ron knew that Harry was worried about the egg, and Harry knew that Ron was afraid of what would happen if Harry went to the prefects' bathroom alone, on Cedric's advice. As a result, Ron was sleeping more and more fitfully, and returning to his own bed earlier and earlier.

Finally, late one Wednesday night in February, Harry woke as Ron was slipping out from under the blankets and caught his wrist.

"I'm going to try the bath tonight," he said in a whisper. "And I need your help."

"What, _now_?"

"No, not _tonight_ tonight. It's after midnight already. I mean the _next_ tonight."

Ron scowled, but decided to pretend that made sense. He eased himself back into Harry's arms, brushing the untidy black hair off Harry's worry-wrinkled forehead. He took a deep breath before he spoke.

"What do you need?" he asked.

Which was how he ended up waiting outside the portrait hole about twenty hours later, listening for Harry's soft knock. He didn't have to wait long; a soft thump from the inside was Ron's cue to say, "Banana fritters." The Fat Lady's portrait swung forward, and something slippery ghosted across Ron's lips.

"Good luck," he muttered, resisting the urge to grab for Harry and hold him close. He could feel the heat of Harry's body as they passed each other, one going in while the other headed out.

Ron looked around the common room. Hermione had spotted him and was busy clearing a space for him at her table. Dean and Seamus looked up from their game of Exploding Snap and called a greeting. Neville glanced up from the corner, where he was curled up with a sheaf of parchment and a quill, shot a glare toward where Ginny was chatting with Natalie McDonald, and went back to writing. Ron suspected he was working on another of the hideous poems Ron had had the misfortune to find on the floor of the dormitory a week or so earlier.

This reminded him that he had never asked Ginny what had happened at the Yule Ball, but he was too distracted to think about it at the moment, so he walked over to Hermione, instead.

By the time he reached her table, though, he was overcome with apocalyptic fantasies of Cedric waiting for Harry in the bath, and seducing him, and ... "I've forgotten something in the library!" he blurted to Hermione's welcoming smile, and turned to run for the portrait hole before she could protest.

It didn't take Ron long to reach the fifth floor corridor, and a good thing, too, because Cedric was only a few paces from the door when Ron caught up with him.

"What the bloody hell are you doing?" he asked as he grabbed Cedric's shoulder and span him around roughly.

Cedric raised an eyebrow at him, his unruffled demeanor mocking everything about Ron's reasons for being there.

"I fancied a bath," he said offhandedly. "What about you?" He took a step forward, and Ron unwillingly fell back in response.

"I _knew_ it," growled Ron. "I knew you were making a move on Harry! Not enough for you to drop me, is it? Now you have to try and take Harry away from me, too!"

Cedric smiled and shook his head. "I had a feeling there was something going on with you two. Even if Hannah and Susan swore there wasn't." He took another step and leaned forward until his nose was almost touching Ron's. The glint in his eye wasn't entirely friendly. "I heard you asked Fleur to the Ball, too. Having a go at Viktor, next? Make your collection of Champions complete?"

Ron scowled, the rage boiling up in his gut. He tried to stand his ground, but Cedric's proximity was too much. "It was never about that!" he hissed. "Harry has always been important to me, and I had -" He broke off, afraid to continue.

"You had ... what, Ron?" Cedric purred, leaning closer again as he said Ron's name. Ron's fingertips touched the rough, stone wall behind him. There was nowhere to go. Cedric's normally sunny attitude had taken on a flavour that was something akin to predatory, and Ron was very nervous, indeed. "Did you have a crush on me? Really? For how long?" His lips were almost brushing Ron's cheekbone as he spoke.

"Until you dropped me for better public relations," responded Ron flatly, staring ahead so as to avoid falling into Cedric's eyes.

Cedric chuckled and pounced suddenly, pinning Ron to the wall. "You know that's not what I meant," he said, raking his right hand along Ron's ribcage, "but alright, you don't have to tell me. I'll take the compliment as it stands."

He pulled his head back far enough to lock his gaze with Ron's, offering his most winning smile. "You've stayed very fit," he said, sliding his hand down to grab Ron's bum firmly. Ron yelped and jumped, but only succeeded in bucking his hips against Cedric's. Cedric gave a satisfied grunt and bucked back, making Ron choke back a whimper.

"Sod off, Cedric," hissed Ron, trying to hide the panting of his breath. "Think you can pop up again, out of nowhere, insult me and then attack me ..."

"But I was only _teasing_ ," came the surprisingly genuine-sounding reply. "You must know I've missed you. And I can tell you've missed me." He ground his hips, rubbing his hardened groin against the traitorous bulge forming in Ron's trousers.

Ron opened his mouth to protest, but Cedric immediately filled it with his tongue. For a panicked eternity, Ron could find neither breath nor strength to resist. The loudest voice in his mind was coming from points south, and hollered for him to close his eyes, grab Cedric's arse in both hands and rub against him until the stars exploded.

"NO!"

Cedric stumbled and almost fell at the suddenness of Ron's shove.

"I'm with Harry, now! _You_ didn't want to be with me, because of a little bad press - no, wait, because of a little _no_ press. You can't have me back only because you're sick of pretending with Cho Chang!"

Cedric narrowed his eyes. "You don't get it, do you? Cho means the world to me. I don't know what I'd do without her. But what we have - it's not the physical stuff. She has _girl bits_ , you know? Rubbing up against her ... I tried it, but it didn't feel right." He took a step forward again, reaching out for Ron's frozen arms. "With you ... _that_ felt _right_."

The moment his fingertips touched Ron's arm, Ron came to his senses and batted them away. "You think it's that easy, don't you?" he snarled, hunching his shoulders.

Cedric smiled freely and brushed the fringe off Ron's forehead. Ron pulled his head back sharply, knocking it into the wall behind him. He winced, and opened his eyes to see Cedric still looking shrewdly at him.

"It could be," he said simply.

Ron boggled at him. "And you expect that I would drop Harry, like that, only because you want a bit of fun again?"

Cedric twisted his mouth into a devious smile, turned and started away. A few paces later, he looked back over his shoulder.

"I never said I wanted you to drop Harry," he said. "I'd love to see what he has, too - since you like him so much, and everything."

Ron was still boggling when Cedric disappeared around the corner and out of sight.


	9. Part Eight: Mysteries and Mer-people

  
Author's notes: Set during Goblet of Fire, so guess who the 'character death' is? Harry and Ron are 14/15 and Cedric is 17, which I'm calling 'underage' but could be considered 'chan' in some circles.  
  
This fic was beta'd by Copper Beech and read by Magicofisis, both of whom have my undying gratitude.  


* * *

Not surprisingly, Ron found himself often thoroughly distracted for weeks after that night. Even Harry's startling information about Mr. Crouch being healthy enough to sneak around Snape's office fell on Ron's ears as though from a great distance. Perhaps, if he hadn't been so busy fantasising about the idea of being with both Harry and Cedric at once, he would have done a better job of defending Harry when Hermione scolded him for not working out the clue sooner.

He found he was no use in finding solutions to Harry's underwater problem, either. The three of them would spend hours in the library, with Hermione researching manically and Harry staring morosely at the nearest open book, and Ron would become lost in the tantalising disappearance and reappearance of Harry's tongue between his lips as he read, so that his blood rushed dizzyingly away from his brain and he could think of nothing other than what that same tongue had done to him the night before.

Ron's appetite for Harry's touch was increasing exponentially. He needed more and more, spent longer and longer nights in Harry's bed, until Harry practically had to shove him out when Neville's snores grew quiet, indicating he was waking up. As a result, Ron and Harry were learning a great deal about each other's bodies in a very short time. Ron knew exactly when to tweak Harry's nipple to push him over the edge and make his eyes fly open so he was looking into Ron's eyes when he climaxed. And Harry had found a delicious spot behind Ron's ear that never failed to make him whimper gratefully when Harry thrust his tongue against it.

And every night, as he stroked and rocked and thrust against Harry's firm, hot body, he imagined how much more exciting, still, it could be if Cedric's hands and teeth and tongue and body were there, stroking and rocking and thrusting with them.

Two nights before the Second Task, when Harry had gone off food for worrying about what he would do, and Ron was growing deeply concerned about him, Hermione stopped in the middle of scanning a book called _Tried-and-True Transfiguration Tricks_ to say, "When, exactly, were you two planning on telling me?"

Ron looked up, quickly, pulling his foot guiltily away from where it had been stroking the inside of Harry's thigh under the table, and kicked his shoe back on. He tried his blankest expression, wishing his face hadn't gone so suddenly, thoroughly hot.

Harry was scowling at Hermione. "Look, I'm sorry I lied to you about having worked out the clue. It was only that you kept going on about it, and I was sick of hearing it! I have it worked out now, anyway, for all the good it's doing me." He finished with a growl, tugging his current tome closer to himself and sticking his nose back in it.

Hermione turned her gaze on Ron. "That's not what I meant," she pursued, and Ron felt his face grow, impossibly, hotter. He knew he must be about the colour of his jumper by now.

Harry's eyes flitted up, spotted Ron's expression, and stopped. His jaw dropped open and a glowing blush bloomed along his cheekbones.

Hermione was watching all of this shrewdly. "So," she said, looking from one red face to the other. "How long?"

Ron looked at Harry, who shrugged. "It's a couple of months, now," he told her, seeing Harry nod in his peripheral vision.

Hermione nodded with a dainty and displeased grunt. "Two months," she repeated under her breath.

"Look, we were going to tell you ..." began Harry, but Hermione shut him down with a glare.

"Like you were _going_ to tell me about not having worked out that clue?" she asked acidly.

"And _you_ were so forthcoming about your partner for the Yule Ball," Ron growled, still very sore on the subject.

Hermione shot him a scowl, but turned a page and kept reading the book in front of her. Within half an hour, the iciness had melted away, without a further word on the subject, and they were back to comparing notes on the lack of information they were finding in all of these heavy, dusty volumes.

The following night, they still hadn't found anything, and both Ron and Hermione were seriously concerned about Harry. He was looking pallid and, if possible, appeared to have lost weight in the past two days. The long, sleepless nights had clearly taken their toll - after staying at the library until closing the previous night, Harry had been so exhausted that Ron had only held him until he'd fallen asleep, then slipped back to his own bed to allow Harry to rest.

Now, with barely twelve hours left until the Second Task was to begin, Harry was entering a whole new stage of panic that Ron wasn't sure he'd ever seen before.

Worried as he was, of course, Ron had lost touch with his tenuous grasp of the concept of tact. In a moment of frustration, he blurted out, "I don't think it can be done. There's nothing. _Nothing_. Closest was that thing to dry up puddles and ponds, that Drought Charm, but that was nowhere near powerful enough to drain the lake."

"There must be something," countered Hermione, while Harry stared at Ron bleakly. "They'd never have set a task that was undoable."

"They have," said Ron in frustration, so sleepy that he wasn't entirely aware of the words coming out of his mouth. "Harry, just go down to the lake tomorrow, right, stick your head in, yell at the merpeople to give back whatever they've nicked and see if they chuck it out." Harry continued to look at him miserably, but Ron could only offer, "Best you can do, mate."

The evening had taken a distinct turn for the pessimistic from there, so that by the time Fred and George had shown up to drag him and Hermione away, Ron had felt a guilty sense of relief at having a respite from having to watch the hopelessness spread over Harry's features.

He didn't like leaving Harry alone, though. Not ever, but especially not now. When Dumbledore had told them they were being put to sleep, Ron had panicked: they'd promised Harry they'd be back to help him, and now they wouldn't see him until the task was over.

Ron, in particular, was more worried than the other hostages. Something came over all warm and fuzzy in his chest when he heard that he was what Harry would miss the most - that much was unmistakable - but he also knew that Harry might not be able to complete the task. What would happen to Ron if Harry didn't show up to rescue him?

"Um, professor?" he asked, trying to pretend his voice wasn't cracking. "What if - what if there's some sort of snag, and our Champion doesn't make it there to rescue us. You know, for some reason." Hermione looked furious, but he was ignoring her, because he wasn't at all pleased that she had been chosen as Krum's hostage. Their relationship must be a little more intense than she was letting on, and Ron thought he might be thoroughly annoyed about that. Cho was eyeing him curiously, for her part, but Ron was _sure_ he wasn't ready to contemplate the ramifications of her being Cedric's most-missed, so he ignored her, as well.

Dumbledore graced him with a twinkling smile. "I assure you that you will all be perfectly safe. If any Champion is unable to complete the task, his or her hostage will be brought to the surface magically, when the task is over. You can trust that we are being _very careful_ to ensure that _no one_ is harmed in the course of this Tournament."

Ron nodded, heartened, and avoided the eyes of all three of the girls in the room. He couldn't help noticing, with wry humour, that even eight-year-old part-Veelas possessed a certain allure, even for queer blokes such as himself.

Anyway, he thought, stealing a glimpse at Hermione. It wasn't as though he weren't interested in _any_ girls.

The next thing he'd known, he'd woken up in Harry's arms, in the lake, in front of the whole school and assorted other spectators, with that bloody Veela kid hanging onto Harry for dear life, from the other side. He hadn't meant to be snippy about Harry dragging her along - it was such a _Harry_ thing to do, after all - only he'd forgotten that it might not be so obvious to Harry, down at the bottom of the Lake, that really, everyone was perfectly safe.

Later that evening, after everyone else was asleep, Ron made up for his snippiness with some much more positive behaviour.


	10. Part Nine: The Good Times are Killing Me

  
Author's notes: Set during Goblet of Fire, so guess who the 'character death' is? Harry and Ron are 14/15 and Cedric is 17, which I'm calling 'underage' but could be considered 'chan' in some circles.  
  
This fic was beta'd by Copper Beech and read by Magicofisis, both of whom have my undying gratitude.  


* * *

After the Second Task, life got much better around Gryffindor. Sure, Ron revelled in the extra attention he got from Padma and the other birds over his role as an underwater hostage, but Harry never did anything but smile at him, which made Ron not even mind when Hermione ruined his story of heroism and adventure by reminding everyone that he had, in fact, slept through the whole thing. Ron minded quite a bit more when that Skeeter cow went after Hermione again and Snape ridiculed Harry and Hermione in his lessons over it, and Hermione started receiving all that hate mail, but Hermione bore it so well that Ron was able to drift easily back to his place of bliss, where, for the most part, everyone in his life was _happy_ for once.

Hermione, apparently, was happy about Ron and Harry's relationship, and developed a tendency toward gazing from one to the other and back, a pleased little smile on her face, when they were all sitting around doing homework together. Neville had finally stopped writing his awful poetry, and although Ron never had found out why he'd been in such a foul mood, it could be assumed that the disappearance of sheets of strained verse was an indication that their author was happy again, so it hardly mattered. Seamus and Dean were as happy as ever, too; they were keeping to themselves more than they had before, but since this gave Ron more opportunities to steal moments alone with Harry, he wasn't about to complain.

Harry was the happiest of all. The prospect of four months without having to deal with anything Tournament related, and three of those months without even being expected to know what was coming next, had lifted such a weight off his shoulders that he was practically floating, nearly all the time. After he got the letter from Sirius and knew he would be seeing him again, his mood shot into the stratosphere. His high spirits had given him so much extra energy, in fact, that he had no way of burning it off except by flying or by spending time in bed with Ron.

Ron was grateful, of course, for his unbelievable luck. Not only was he the Thing Harry Would Miss Most ("I told you," Harry had said that first night after Ron had finished apologising for his snarkiness in the Lake), but Harry never seemed to grow tired of exploring Ron's body, pouring all of his newfound joy into finding newer and more exciting ways to give Ron pleasure and to invite Ron to give him pleasure in return. It's not as though he had to ask, of course. Ron was as enthralled with Harry as ever, and could imagine a future when he would do nothing but go to work, come home and bonk Harry until they were both so knackered they couldn't move.

Of course, events came and went during that time. Ron found out that he'd paid Harry for the Omnioculars in _leprechaun_ gold, and that Harry hadn't even noticed when it had disappeared. It had really bothered him, this unconscious privilege that Harry held due to his vast wealth, but when he and Harry were naked together at night, there was nothing that held one of them above the other. When there was nothing but skin under their hands and lips and teeth and tongues, Ron couldn't be bothered to remember which of them was richer than the other.

Nor did Harry ever seem to mind, once they were alone in the bed, how caught up Ron could get in his arguments with Hermione. It wasn't that he didn't like Hermione - far from it - nor than he feared Hermione disliked him. They simply never seemed to meet up quite the right way; everything would be going fine, and then one would push the other's buttons in some tiny manner that would be imperceptible if it were anyone else, but because it was Hermione, because it was Ron, could never pass unnoticed or unremarked. Ron knew it drove Harry mad, and suspected there was something of jealousy or possessiveness in Harry's annoyance, but the bristling nerves were always smoothed away from the moment that Ron slid under Harry's blankets and tugged off his pyjama top, pulling Harry's thin torso close against his chest.

In the back of Ron's mind, though, one niggling little thought kept cropping up: if it was this good with him and Harry, could it be even better with him, Harry _and_ Cedric? Without entirely realising it, Ron started watching Harry when Cedric was around. He tended to look and scowl when Cedric and Cho were together, and Ron had to admit the possibility that Harry might still have a very real crush on Cho. But when Cedric was alone or with other Hufflepuff friends, Harry's eyes turned a little glazed and starry, as though he might be wondering what could have happened if Cedric had joined him in the bath that night.

One evening, when Harry had taken Ron flying on his Firebolt and had flown him so high that the Anti-Vibration Charms had weakened and the hard shaft of the broom had pulsed against their crotches until they were both panting and pawing at each other to relieve the pressure, Harry dragged Ron unceremoniously into his bed before anyone else had even returned to the dormitory and started sucking him off before Ron even had both legs up on the mattress. It was only a minute or two before Ron was gasping and seeing stars, and he hadn't recovered at all before Harry had dropped his trousers and pants and was rubbing himself into Ron's open palm.

Reflexively, Ron grabbed hold and pumped his fist, looking up through his fringe into Harry's hooded green eyes. He was getting hard again only from watching Harry react to his touch, and couldn't repress the urge to pull Harry down on top of him where the grappled and ground against each other. Ron reached between them to cup Harry's balls and massage them gently, pleased to see Harry's still-bespectacled eyes go visibly crossed before they fell closed and his forehead furrowed in the effort to find that place, that moment, that delicious bit of the right kind of friction that finally sent him crying over the edge, spilling onto Ron's bare stomach.

Even then, Harry wasn't exhausted, but crawled immediately down Ron's body to nip and suck at Ron's thighs, taking Ron in both of his hands and pulling and gripping, climbing astride him as he worked so that his miraculously reborn member was pressed against Ron's, slipping and thrusting, bearing down with all his weight, which wasn't quite enough, but when Ron started to ache from frustration and grabbed Harry's hips and flipped them both over, it didn't take either of them long to find that point again, so that they forgot to keep quiet as they shouted each other's names, Ron almost crying with pleasure when Harry's slim hands gripped both of his buttocks firmly, directing him home.

A minute later, Harry's mouth had found Ron's nipple and begun to lick and bite and tease, drawing happily unbelieving groans from Ron, who was so knackered he couldn't imagine another go. Harry's hand was already sliding down his body to his hip, drawing their naked skin together, then apart for a moment as Harry's other hand found his wand and his mouth left the nipple for long enough to whisper a Cleansing Charm. Harry continued to stroke and to kiss many parts of Ron's body, waiting somewhat patiently for Ron to regain his energy. When he felt himself getting aroused again, Ron looked up into Harry's eyes - now shed of their glasses - to see an anticipatory expression. With a hint of pleading in his gaze, Harry whispered another spell. Ron smelled something delicious, like fresh berries, but couldn't find the source right away. He finally looked down to discover that Harry had coated his own groin with a slippery substance, which Ron quickly discerned he was meant to taste. He shifted himself down until he could reach to lick Harry gently. The flavour was sweet and succulent, like blackcurrant juice, and Ron immediately returned for more. He took more and more of Harry into his mouth with every motion, sucking and licking, seeming to taste more of the delectable substance the more he tried. He was enjoying himself so much, he was only dimly aware of Harry's breath growing shorter and shorter, until Harry dug all ten fingers deep into Ron's hair and gave a great thrust of his hips, pouring himself down Ron's throat, which Ron's swallowed like so much sweet jam. He'd barely finished swallowing, still hungrily sucking because the charm hadn't worn off, when Harry began to go hard again, so Ron kept going, devouring Harry and his blackcurrant charm until Harry finished again, and finally began to show signs of wearying.

_Blimey_ , Ron thought to himself as he drifted off to sleep with his arms wrapped around Harry's naked body, _if Harry keeps up like this, I mightn't be able to satisfy him anymore ..._

He had almost fallen asleep when his mind added two words to the end of that thought: _... by myself ..._


	11. Part Ten: No Rest For The Wicked

  
Author's notes: Set during Goblet of Fire, so guess who the 'character death' is? Harry and Ron are 14/15 and Cedric is 17, which I'm calling 'underage' but could be considered 'chan' in some circles.  
  
This fic was beta'd by Copper Beech and read by Magicofisis, both of whom have my undying gratitude.  


* * *

The thought grew stronger, as the weeks passed, and Harry's energy continued unabated: that Ron, no matter how much he relished having it off with Harry, was having serious difficulty keeping up with Harry's drive.

More and more often, as his arm grew tired from pumping or his jaw stiffened or his skin chafed, Ron began to fantasise about what a relief it might be to have some _help_ in dealing with Harry.

He began to watch Cedric at meals again, began to relearn the easy tilt and shake of Cedric's head when he laughed at a joke made by one of his friends, or the momentary furrow that would flash across his brow when he was having a serious conversation or answering a sincere question. The only difference, this time, was that Cedric was noticing Ron right back. He would catch his eye, startling Ron out of his anonymous reverie, give a slight nod toward Harry's oblivious head, and drop a wink.

So. The offer stood, then, clearly. Or perhaps, as Ron had always feared, Cedric still had designs on taking Harry away from Ron. The more Ron thought about this possibility, the more the Second Task faded in his memory, until he began to worry, again, that Harry would prefer Cedric and would leave Ron the moment he got wind of Cedric's attraction to him.

Which explained why Ron panicked the day he learned that Harry had to meet Cedric out on the grounds at nine o' clock in the evening. Alright, technically, Harry and the other three Champions had been summoned to meet Ludo Bagman, but Ron was keenly aware of how easy it would be for Cedric to get him alone on the walk back to the castle, to lure him into a shadowy thicket, to take advantage of Harry's youth and trusting nature and the romantic light of the stars, to slide Harry's robes off his shoulders in the warm spring air, laying him down on the grass and breathing encouraging words into his ear as Harry showed him what he and Ron had learned together over the last several months.

"You're being ridiculous," Hermione told him as Ron paced back and forth in the Entrance Hall, occasionally stopping to peer out into the darkness for a sign of the returning Champions. "Harry is going to find out what the Third Task is, and he will come right back."

"Hermione, don't be stupid. You don't know Cedric like I do -"

"But I _do_ know Harry," she interrupted, blocking his path by standing with her fists planted firmly on her hips, so Ron had to stop or swerve around her. He halted, staring her down, his own folded arms challenging her to continue. Hermione rolled her eyes at him. "Harry _loves_ you, Ron. He won't care how handsome or popular Cedric is. He'd rather be with you."

Ron let out an impatient blast of breath and pivoted quickly on his heel to pace around her. When he reached the farthest point of his trajectory, he turned and faced her again. "You really know how to make a bloke feel better, you know that Hermione?"

She threw up her hands in an exasperated sort of shrug. "I don't know what you want me to say, except ... Cedric's behind you."

"What?"

Hermione gestured with her eyebrows, past Ron's head and out into the darkness. Ron followed her gaze to see Fleur approaching, head high as she mostly ignored the animated and very one-sided conversation Ludo Bagman was holding in her general direction. Behind them, Cedric sauntered casually, looking vaguely amused but mostly unconcerned. They reached the point where the path toward the Beauxbatons carriage diverged, and Ron was breathlessly relieved to see Fleur and Bagman head off in that direction. He was sure he would never get over the humiliation of having asked her to the Yule Ball, no matter how many more times he had to see her in his life.

"I'll leave you to it, shall I?" breathed Hermione in his ear, reminding Ron where he was and why he was waiting there, pacing in the Entrance Hall while the last few straggling students bustled by on their way to the library, to their common rooms, perhaps to clandestine meetings in darkened corners of the less frequented corridors.

Ron turned to find Hermione's face much closer to his than he could ever remember it being. His heart sped up several notches, but he didn't have the spare brain power to work out the reasons for that, at the moment. Hermione's expression was rueful and a bit dull, and as Ron looked at it, he realised that Harry wasn't the only one who wasn't returning promptly from the Champions' gathering.

Harry and Cedric, that was something Ron had predicted. He wouldn't be happy if it happened (without him), but he wouldn't be surprised. But Harry and _Krum_?

Ron opened his mouth to say something, preferably something sage that would set both their minds completely at ease, but no syllables emerged. Hermione shook her head and gave him a resigned shrug, then turned and began to climb the staircases that lead in the general direction of Gryffindor Tower.

"Waiting up for me?" asked Cedric before Ron could face the doors again. "Or is it Harry you want?" Ron blinked, as always a bit at loss for words when confronted with the reality of Cedric's presence in the same space as his own awkward body. When he got close enough that Ron could smell the scent of evening air and damp grass clinging to Cedric's robes, Cedric leaned in and said, "Or perhaps _both_?"

Ron coughed, fully recognising the self-implication of the noise, and stumbled back a step.

"You've been watching me again," teased Cedric, the lightness of his voice and sparkle in his eyes belying the predatory tone of his words. "I know because I've been watching you. _Both_ of you."

The syllables that fell out of Ron's mouth only rearranged themselves into language as he heard them hang in the air, and then he was horrified that they had been allowed to exist in any auditory reality: "How would that work, exactly, if we ... you know ..."

Cedric grinned, ear to ear. "Quite nicely, I like to think." He tangled his fist in the loose material at the front of Ron's robes, dragging him around the corner to where he couldn't watch the door for Harry and Krum anymore. "Of course," Cedric added, breathing hotly against Ron's flushing face, "Harry will have to come back from whatever he's busy at with Krum." With a wink, Cedric leaned Ron's body into the nearest wall, resting his weight all along him so that Ron could feel all his angles and contours and heat. Millimeters from Ron's ear, Cedric whispered, "But if he doesn't, I'm sure you and I can keep ourselves busy."

The edge of Cedric's lip was brushing against Ron's burning earlobe when the sound of running footsteps made them both freeze. Ron glanced toward the stairs and, to his horror, spotted Harry disappearing into the upper floors. He clearly hadn't seen them, but it had been far too close a thing for Ron's comfort. He shoved Cedric back, almost knocking him from his feet.

"Look, you can't - you can't _do_ that, alright? I'm with Harry, and I can't ... I _can't_ ..." Ron stammered helplessly, habit forcing him to seek Cedric's approval and understanding, even as his behaviour appalled and slightly frightened Ron.

Cedric smiled, a bit graciously, a bit sadly. "Alright, I get it," he said, taking several steps backwards in quick succession. "I just ... look, the offer is still open, if you want. But," and he glanced meaningfully in the direction whence Harry had vanished, "you should get going now."

Ron nodded, hanging on to the eye contact for a few too many seconds for it to be anything but longing, before he turned and ran for Gryffindor Tower, hoping against hope that Harry wouldn't have noticed his absence yet.


	12. Part Eleven: Abstinence Makes the Heart Grow Fonder

  
Author's notes: Set during Goblet of Fire, so guess who the 'character death' is? Harry and Ron are 14/15 and Cedric is 17, which I'm calling 'underage' but could be considered 'chan' in some circles.  
  
This fic was beta'd by Copper Beech and read by Magicofisis, both of whom have my undying gratitude.  


* * *

The next twenty-four hours were possibly the longest of Ron's life. He'd returned to Gryffindor Tower at a dead run, only to learn that Hermione hadn't seen hide nor hair of Harry yet, which only got her worried when Ron let slip that he'd seen Harry sprint up the stairs several minutes ahead of him. When Harry finally tumbled through the portrait hole a quarter of an hour later, panicked and nearly hyperventilating, it had taken both Ron and Hermione to calm him down enough to get the story of Mr. Crouch's mysterious appearance and disappearance, Viktor being Stunned, Snape being impossible and Karkaroff being outraged, and Dumbledore being efficient and trusting of Harry's word, but ultimately too late to reach Mr. Crouch before he vanished.

Through it all, Ron's mind hummed with his luck at not being caught in the Entrance Hall with Cedric, and with the question that loomed heavy over both his and - he could clearly see - Hermione's minds.

Finally, somewhere in the shocked lull as Harry's account sank in, Hermione asked in a strained, light voice, "What were you doing alone with Viktor, in the first place?"

Ron shot his eyes toward her, then fixed his attention on Harry. His breath whooshed easily out of his lungs the moment he saw the complete lack of guilt in Harry's expression. There was a bit of awkwardness, yes, and quite a lot of amusement as he turned to her and responded, "He wanted to talk to me - about my intentions toward you."

Hermione blinked twice, flushed a very pretty shade of pink, and began to examine her cuticles in great detail.

Ron watched the light sparkle in Harry's eyes, and wanted nothing more in the world than to throw Harry over his shoulder, carry him up to the dormitory, throw him down on the bed and _Evanesco_ every scrap of clothing from his body. Unfortunately, he could also see beyond the sparkle, to where Harry was genuinely concerned about what had happened to Crouch and to Viktor, and what it meant to his own safety and the safety of everyone at Hogwarts. Somewhere in his middle, Ron could even feel Harry worrying about _him_ , about protecting him from whatever this vague and unsettling threat was that was hovering over the whole school and the whole year. Feeling that, Ron couldn't help searching out Harry's hand under the table, giving it a firm squeeze, and believing, at least for those few seconds, that he really _was_ the most important thing in Harry's life. He wasn't proud of the happiness he felt from entertaining that thought, but he _was_ reassured.

They ended up staying up all night, the three of them, discussing all the angles and implications of what Harry had witnessed and what the staff had said about it. In the morning, they drafted a letter to Sirius and climbed to the Owlery to deliver it, nearly revealing 'Snuffles's' proximity to the twins when they met up with them on the way out. Hermione seemed especially worried about the twins' shifty behaviour and talk of blackmail, but Ron wanted to know as little about it as possible, in case his mother ever asked.

What Ron _wanted_ was to tell Harry about Cedric's offer. It seemed petty and unimportant, talking about orgiastic fantasies when the fate of the wizarding world might hang in the balance, but Ron was fifteen, and the majority of his brain cells were not located inside his skull. He knew that important things were happening, important things that might require his attention, but when Harry kept taking hold of his wrist to check his watch during History of Magic that morning, so many electric pulses ran up Ron's arm and down to his groin that he was throbbingly hard and going dizzy by the time the lesson was half gone. He wanted to tackle Harry to the ground, to throw himself on top of him and grind him into the cold, stone floor, and if the whole class was watching, so much the better. Harry was his, and if danger was looming, then he was starting to believe that he really might not mind who knew just _how_ and _how much_ he belonged to Harry.

A tiny, frustrated noise escaped Ron's throat, and Lavender turned halfway toward him, giving him a look that was half intrigued, half bemused. Ron pretended not to feel his skin go hot, but cleared his throat, angled his quill as though taking notes, and looked straight ahead with an expression that was meant to look attentive. Harry's eyes fell on him like a warm, steel glove, and Ron continued to act as though a burning flush were not creeping up his neck and around his ears. He would have to wait a little longer until he could be alone with Harry again, and he would manage it, somehow.

When the bell rang, Harry jumped up, shoving his books into his schoolbag and darting for the door. Ron leapt up to follow him, excited to find the first secluded alcove, when he remembered that Harry was rushing not to catch a chance for a quickie, but because he wanted to ask Moody's opinion about what had happened the previous evening. Ron trailed behind Harry and Hermione, who had been out the door ahead of Harry, and gritted his teeth through the meeting with Moody.

As they were leaving Moody's office, Moody fixed his real eye on both Ron and Hermione, and although his magical eye was pointed out the window toward the Durmstrang ship, Ron had the disquieting sensation that it could see the filthy fantasies running through his head. "You two," he said gruffly, making Ron jump as though accused of something, "you stick close to Potter, alright? I'm keeping an eye on things, but all the same ... you can never have too many eyes out."

Ron winced at the rather unappetising pun, but also felt his pulse head south. 'Sticking close' to Harry was what he'd been wanting to do all day, and what he intended to do the moment he could get both of them back to the Gryffindor dormitories. Maybe sooner, if he could find an empty classroom nearby and get rid of Hermione.

No such luck, of course, so it wasn't until after dinner and a couple more hours of studying and speculating after _that_ that Ron got Harry alone and in bed and naked and focussed on something other than what he'd witnessed the previous evening. For only the second time since they'd been together, Ron didn't wait for their dormmates to return to the room and go to sleep, but pulled Harry's bed hangings closed and then - and this was a first since he and Harry had kissed that first night in December - dragged Harry into his own bed where he ravished him, repeatedly and thoroughly until they were both too knackered to move and their lips were raw and swollen from raking across each other's skin.

Holding Harry there in his arms, peaceful and sated and sweaty and naked, Ron felt ridiculous for considering Cedric's proposition. If he'd made anything clear that evening, it was that he had plenty enough energy to keep up with Harry, given just the little bit of extra motivation that had grown within him from the extra hours of denied release. They didn't need Cedric to try and join or wedge his way between what Ron and Harry already had. Ron would tell him in the morning: he would tell him no thanks, that he and Harry were -

"What were you and Cedric talking about last night?" asked Harry in a muted whisper, so soft it was barely a breath of air.

Ron froze, and in freezing, felt the obviousness of his guilt pour off him in waves. As quickly as he'd decided to forget Cedric's offer, he understood that he had no option but to tell Harry about it; anything else would make it obvious that Ron was trying to hide something, and considering what Harry had probably seen, could spell some serious trouble for this perfect contentment that Ron had so lately been enjoying.

So, he told him. Given the situation, and the suddenness of the question, and the nature of the revelation itself, it's not surprising that he utterly failed to finesse the information into any presentation less shocking than its plain, bald truth. Once he'd said it, Ron heard his voice reenter his brain via his ears, and understood again how completely bizarre the situation was. Here was Cedric Diggory, one of the most handsome and popular and accomplished boys in school, and here were the famous Harry Potter, unwilling Triwizard Champion, and the nearly anonymous Ron Weasley, known only by his brothers' reputations or his proximity to Harry, and this smart, tall, talented sixth-year had decided that he wanted a couple of fourth-years to ... well. It was no wonder that Harry's eyes flew wide and his mouth stammered, "He ... what?"

Something about the raw hunger in Harry's eyes, the soft parting of his lips into an ' _O_ ' of surprise, made Ron need to kiss Harry much more than he needed to repeat what he'd told him. And as he rolled on top of him again, sticking to his skin a bit because of the sweat drying between their bodies, and as he felt Harry growing warm beneath him again as they moved, Ron swore he heard Harry's voice sigh in his ear, "Yes - oh - _oh_ \- yes, tell him yes," and then the blood was rushing too loudly in Ron's ears for him to ear anything more at all other than his own panting breath and hungry moans.


	13. Part Twelve: While the Getting's Good

  
Author's notes: Set during Goblet of Fire, so guess who the 'character death' is? Harry and Ron are 14/15 and Cedric is 17, which I'm calling 'underage' but could be considered 'chan' in some circles.  
  
This fic was beta'd by Copper Beech and read by Magicofisis, both of whom have my undying gratitude.  


* * *

It wasn't that simple, of course. It wasn't as though Harry could pant, 'yes, oh, yes,' into Ron's ear and that would be the end of the discussion, as though Ron could stroll up to Cedric after lunch and ask, 'About your proposition, are you free at eight o'clock this evening?'

When Harry and Ron had drifted back to consciousness after a few hours of fitful post-coital rest, Harry had been evasively sheepish about his enthusiasm for the idea of - if Ron was contemplating doing it, he would have to get used to thinking it - a _threesome_ with Cedric. Ron had had to coax him back to talking about it, to encourage without pushing until Harry admitted to a certain curiosity, even envy of Ron's experience with Cedric before the First Task, and to an attraction for this older student whose life had stood like a warped mirror before Harry's own throughout the course of the year.

It made sense, when Ron thought about it that way. Cedric was the easy, popular Champion that Harry should have been allowed to be. He was supported by his whole house, from the very beginning; people believed in him, people cheered for him, before they even saw what he could do in the grueling tests of the Tournament. Ron himself had even briefly slipped to Cedric's side, away from Harry's, and although the fascination had been there as long as Ron could remember, it had taken the row with Harry for the brief relationship to begin. And then, when Cedric had dropped Ron, he'd taken Harry's girl - what a strange pair of words to think, 'Harry's girl' - and escorted her to the Yule Ball in Harry's stead. So now that Cedric wanted to touch Harry, to be touched by him, to be close to him in a way that only Ron had been before, it felt like an organic sort of closing of a circle, bringing a cycle back to its beginning.

All of those philosophical, detached thoughts would enter Ron's mind later, though, when he ran the conversation back like a grainy recording. At the time that Harry was explaining his feelings, all Ron felt was that something hot went excitingly liquid in the pit of his belly, pooling heat in his groin again as they lay close together, still naked and starting to get chilled from their combined sweat in the night air. Harry nuzzled his neck, humming happily as he did. "You want this, too, don't you?" he murmured, and it was part statement, part question, part plea. Ron kissed Harry's forehead, involuntarily bucking once against his hip, and whispered his assent.

Once he'd agreed, once he'd admitted to Harry that he wanted this mad fantasy to be true, Ron was left with the matter of informing Cedric, which, naturally, he couldn't begin to imagine doing. He could _imagine_ it, of course, but only in the sense of torrid, sweaty fantasies that made him have to walk with his bookbag held in front of him in the corridors between lessons, or in the sense of anxieties filling his head with pictures of Hufflepuffs laughing and pointing as Ron tried to pull Cedric aside after breakfast to tell him, sure Cedric would say something mocking or dismissive or, worst of all, perplexed.

Harry, meanwhile, grew enthusiastic again, to the point where Ron was getting almost no sleep from having it off all night, then was spending free periods being the practise dummy while Harry worked on his hexes and Hermione coached him along; as a result, Ron was sore all over and decidedly grouchier than might be expected for someone who was in the enviable position of being sexually desired by both Hogwarts Champions.

And then Harry fell asleep in Divination that day, and had that vision of Voldemort torturing Wormtail, and ended up in Dumbledore's office watching memories of Death Eaters on trial and learning that Bagman had once stood accused of involvement with the Dark forces, and that Snape had been a Death Eater but had supposedly turned spy for the Order and had been under Dumbledore's protection ever since. For a few days after that, everything seemed so heavy and important that even though he couldn't keep his eyes off Cedric and couldn't stop imagining how it might feel to have Cedric's strong, sure hands roaming over his back while Harry's smaller, more delicate hands stroked down his front, Ron simply couldn't imagine something as inappropriate as this _idea_ belonging in a world so full of darkness that an air of danger hung over Harry's life like a giant cloud.

Looking at it that way, Ron shouldn't have been at all surprised the night that Harry rolled him over, pinned him down with both his hands and the intensity in his eyes, and asked whether Ron was ever going to talk to Cedric or whether Harry would have to do it himself. Ron blinked, tried to strain up to kiss Harry so that he would close his eyes and stop starting like that, but had to settled for blinking again in an embarrassed sort of confusion. Of course it was a great fantasy, an excellent idea, that they might be able to be near Cedric's fantastically toned body while still being with each other, but the level of urgency in Harry's manner came as quite a surprise.

Seeing Ron's expression, Harry lowered himself until Ron could meet his lips, sigh into his mouth, and wrap his arms around his waist. Harry let a minute or two pass that way before he pulled his face out of reach again. "It's only - I'm scared, Ron. I don't know what's going to happen in the Third Task, but I have a bad feeling. And I think, if we're going to do this, we'd better get on with it."

There was no response possible for this, of course, so Ron pulled Harry close with all his might until Harry's arms gave and he collapsed and Ron could press his lips to Harry's again, murmuring, "I will," and, "I promise," and "yes," against Harry's mouth as they began to move and slide, skin over skin, delicious friction building to a climax that was no less exciting for its growing familiarity.


	14. Part Thirteen: Mutual Admiration Society

  
Author's notes: Set during Goblet of Fire, so guess who the 'character death' is? Harry and Ron are 14/15 and Cedric is 17, which I'm calling 'underage' but could be considered 'chan' in some circles.  
  
This fic was beta'd by Copper Beech and read by Magicofisis, both of whom have my undying gratitude.  


* * *

"Yes," he told him, and the matter was settled.

Cedric did blink at him, once, in a moment of confusion that was more surprise than perplexity.

"Really?" he asked Ron finally. "You really ... you really want to?"

"Yes," Ron repeated, hearing his words fall with heavy significance in the quiet of the deserted Charms corridor.

A grin was finding its way to the corners of Cedric's mouth, making him look for all the world like a child who's been promised free reign in Honeydukes for an entire day. "And Harry?" he asked hopefully.

" _Yes_." Now that he'd said it, Ron was unaccountably shy, and was impatient to make his escape.

Cedric grinned and ran a rough palm over Ron's jaw and down the side of his neck to his shoulder. He pulled him close and lay a wet kiss underneath his opposite ear. "Brilliant," he murmured huskily before letting go. "Prefects' bath, then? Tonight at midnight? Tell Harry the password's still the same."

Ron swallowed, hard, and nodded, pulling himself away more brusquely than he meant. "Yeah, I'll ... I'll just see you tonight, then," he stammered, then turned and stumbled away toward the empty classroom where Harry and Hermione were waiting for him.

He got to the doorway in time to watch Harry cast a perfect Stunning Charm on Hermione, and reflexively ran to catch her before she could hit the floor. It was a good job he did, because she was aiming to miss the cushion by a good seven inches. Harry raised an eyebrow at Ron, who stood there with a Stunned Hermione in his arms, and raised an eyebrow back. That was the brilliant thing about Harry: he understood immediately, and coloured to the roots of his hair before breaking into a shining smile. ' _When?_ ' he mouthed, but Hermione was coming to, so Ron shook his head in an _I'll-tell-you-later_ sort of way, and helped her regain her feet.

"Stunning Charms are looking good, Harry," Ron said quickly, before Hermione could volunteer him to take over as test dummy. "What else did you want to practise?"

They worked for a couple of hours, until dinnertime, and then for another couple of hours afterward. Ron found an opportunity, between mouthfuls of stew in the Great Hall, to whisper the details of their arrangement into Harry's ear. Harry turned such an immediate, hot shade of magenta that Ron wanted to tackle him on the spot, but instead he sought Cedric out across the Hall, finding that he _was_ , indeed, watching them, and looked as impatient as they did for the hours to pass until midnight. Meanwhile, though, Ron and Hermione still had exams looming in the very near future, which meant that around nine o'clock, they bid goodnight to Harry and headed to the library to study History of Magic. Hermione was uncharacteristically generous with her painstakingly thorough notes on the Goblin Rebellions of the Nineteenth Century, but Ron was completely incapable of concentrating. Finally, around ten o'clock, Hermione gave up and sent him back to Gryffindor. "But don't blame me if you don't pass your exam," she admonished as Ron gathered up his books and shoved them into his bag.

At fifteen minutes before midnight, Harry solemnly swore he was up to no good - which was possibly more true than ever before - and spent a few minutes examining the map. Finally he brightened and looked up, pointing his right index finger at a moving dot that was progressing steadily from the Hufflepuff common room toward the fifth floor and was labelled 'Cedric Diggory.' Turning their attention to Gryffindor Tower, they saw a few dots in their own common room, but none at all between the Fat Lady and Boris the Bewildered. Grinning stupidly at each other, they each took an end of the Invisibility Cloak, worked together to cover themselves completely, and started to move quietly down the stairs.

The walk to the prefects' bathroom seemed to take hours. Ron was keenly aware of the muffled sound of every one of their footsteps, of the way a few of the portraits stirred in their sleep as they passed, of the heat of Harry's body next to him, of the painful alertness of his own groin. He feared he was going to embarrass himself completely, the moment he found himself naked with both Cedric and Harry, by finishing before any of them could even start. Then he accidentally brushed against Harry on the way around a corner and Harry moaned desperately, and Ron realised that at the very least, he wouldn't be the only one in danger of ending the party early.

" _Pine fresh_ ," they told the door in a low, unison whisper when they arrived, and quickly turned the handle as soon as they heard the lock click open. As they slipped through the door, they slid the Cloak off themselves so that Cedric might not see it. Turning, Ron got his first look at the room.

It was even more spectacular than Harry's description had led him to imagine. The white marble glowed richly in the light of the dozens of candles in the crystal chandelier. Black night behind the tall, thin, steam-fogged windows only heightened the sense of exclusivity. Ron's eyes scanned the rows of differently jewelled taps, the diving board, the mermaid painting. Unlike in Harry's account, the cavernous tub was already filled for their arrival, probably by the golden-skinned prefect whose head and bare, slick shoulders rested against a cushion along one of the farther edges.

Probably hearing the door click shut, Cedric opened his eyes and, seeing both of them, grinned widely. "Hey," he called softly, the sound echoing and rebounding into a muddle of honeyed voice in the middle of the room. Ron and Harry looked at him, both seemed to notice the pile of robes on a bench behind him, and then met each other's eyes. Harry's pupils were so dilated it was a wonder he could see at all. Ron gave a sheepish grin and a shrug, and for lack of a better idea, walked to the closest bench he could find and began throwing his clothes onto it. He quickly found himself being helped, with Harry's thin, confident fingers undoing his flies and tugging down his trousers and pants. Ron whirled around and began undressing Harry, pulling off his robes and tie and unbuttoning his shirt. For a moment, it didn't even matter than they were in this lush, sensuous place or that the object of Ron's lifelong crush was watching. Getting naked with Harry never got old, never got less exciting, never made Ron less inclined to start immediately licking and sucking at Harry's neck and jawline or to squeeze Harry's arse in both hands or to pull him tight against him so that their hips and thighs met and groins pressed together.

Harry let out a contentedly urgent moan and manoeuvred a hand free to cast aside his spectacles. Ron heard them land on the pile of clothing with a very quiet thud. Opening his eyes, Ron saw that Cedric was watching them, had probably never stopped watching them since he'd seen them come in, and that the water in front of Cedric was rippling as though being disturbed rhythmically beneath the surface. Ron pulled away from Harry enough to take his hand and to lead him to the edge of the water, where they both slipped in and began to make their way across to where Cedric waited for them.

As soon as they were in the water, it became evident that Harry was not as comfortable with swimming as Ron was and Cedric appeared to be. He wasn't a _weak_ swimmer, precisely, but he clearly hadn't grown up spending half of every summer in the water the way Ron and Cedric had. Paddling up behind Harry, Ron encircled his waist with one strong arm and tugged him along as he swam. The fact that this arrangement pressed Harry's warm, slick hip between Ron's legs was only an additional benefit to the primary objective of closing the distance between them and Cedric as fast as possible.

The nearer they drew to Cedric, the more obvious it was that he was growing pleasantly frantic from waiting to touch them both. Ron felt Harry's shoulders stiffen awkwardly as they reached a distance of arm's length, but Ron couldn't take his eyes off the hunger in Cedric's face. For the first time, ever, he felt like Cedric's equal, like a coconspirator, and he grinned when their eyes met around Harry's wet, plastered down hair.

"Ready?" Ron murmured into Harry's ear, but wasn't sure he could have stopped even if Harry hadn't nodded against his face as they floated ever forward. Still holding Harry before him like a shield, or an offering, Ron swam directly up to Cedric and reached his free hand out to grasp firmly behind his neck, pulling his face forward for a deep, ravenous kiss. Harry's hot, soap-slicked body was trapped between them, and Ron quickly lost track of whose hands and arms were whose as he slid his hands down Cedric's back and grabbed his arse firmly, bucking as he tugged, so that all three sets of hips crushed together and Ron's hardness slid precisely into the indentation between Harry's buttocks and Harry's and Cedric's groins must have met up because they both gasped and began rolling their hips against each other. Cedric's tongue was still deep inside Ron's mouth, and he was panting and moaning, and Harry's jaw was working where it rested against Ron's which meant he had probably started nipping and sucking at Cedric's earlobe and throat. Letting his legs float up, Ron circled both Harry's and Cedric's waists until he could feel his ankles meet again and pulled tight, grinding harder against Harry's perfect arse. He slipped a hand between Harry's and Cedric's bodies, finding their twin erections and closing his fist around them, pumping and stroking and revelling in the contrasting chorus of moans this elicited. Someone's hand found its way onto Ron's own arse and began kneading and stroking, encouraging him as he flexed his strong thigh muscles to crush their bodies all together. Soon Harry was panting and bucking wildly, and Ron's erection slipped even more perfectly between Harry's arse cheeks so that he was getting stimulated - _oh Merlin, like that, **exactly** like that_ \- the way he needed it, and was quickly moving as quickly and jerkily as Harry was. It was all Ron could do to keep the presence of mind to pump his fist faster as he did, so that Cedric's eyes also rolled back and soon all three of them were panting and pawing and grinding and miraculously not sinking and so close, so _close_ , but only Harry shouted out, tightened his grip (so it had been Harry's hand on Ron's arse) and went still.

Cedric, between panting breaths, grabbed his wand from the side of the bath and flicked it toward the water, muttering something unintelligible, which Ron hoped was evidence that Cleansing Charms worked in the water. Cedric's eyes were dark and supplicating, and Ron barely had to think before nudging Harry aside and pushing Cedric up on out of the water where he sprawled on his back and Ron could reach to take him in his mouth and begin sucking intently. Thanks to the magic bubbles in the water, Cedric tasted of sweets and fruit and flowers, all mixed together, and the scent of him was a perfume of cleanliness and delicacy. Under Ron's attention, Cedric was quickly moaning and bucking again, but Ron was still painfully underfulfilled. He'd barely had time to entertain the thought, however, when Harry swam up behind him and wrapped a hand around him while pressing up behind him with his miraculously recovered hardness. Ron moaned around Cedric's smooth, hard length, and Cedric whimpered in turn from the vibrations. Harry had found a flannel somewhere, and was using it to stroke him slowly, torturously, the roughness heightening the sensation so that Ron was seeing sparkly brightness even as he struggled to find release. Trying to stay focussed on what he was doing, he thrust the tip of his tongue against Cedric's vein and raked it along as he bobbed his head, which almost immediately sent Cedric over the edge, spilling across Ron's lips requiring the use of another Cleansing Charm.

Harry was still working with the flannel, pressing himself ever more tightly against Ron from behind, but try as he might, Ron wasn't quite finding the right angle, the right point to let himself go. Cedric and Harry must have come to some unspoken agreement, because Ron found himself hoisted out of the water, landing near where Cedric's knees had been, and then Harry and Cedric were kissing _around_ him, lips and tongues meeting and battling and lapping at him as they wrestled. He could feel one pair of lips purse around him and slide off, then the other take a turn, alternating so quickly that the tantalising cold/hot/cold/hot wanted to drive him insane. Blindly, he flailed out to thread the fingers of each hand into the soaked hair at the nape of each neck, and it took every ounce of control not to force the heads to bob or to thrust into the mouths that covered and uncovered him, until they returned to licking him simultaneously from both sides, and one of them (Ron suspected it was Cedric) did the tongue-against-the-vein trick he'd so recently done, and it had the same effect on him so that he finally saw stars and nearly wept as he came over both of their faces.

Ron expected to hear Cedric mutter another spell, but when he'd regained his vision enough, he looked down to see Cedric and Harry kissing, licking Ron's release from each other's faces. Ron felt himself twitch again from seeing it, but as soon as it caught the others' attention that he was regaining his strength, they dragged him into the pool and began licking his neck, sucking on his earlobes, pressing their naked, soap-slick bodies against him from either side. Ron lost himself in the sensation, lost track of how many times each of them finished or how many different positions and methods they tried. By the time they were all too exhausted to continue, the clock on the wall was softly chiming two o'clock and by unspoken mutual assent, they all knew it was time to find their way back to their respective dormitories.

By unspoken mutual assent, they also all knew they would be returning at the same hour the following night.


	15. Part Fourteen: Excuses, Excuses

  
Author's notes: Set during Goblet of Fire, so guess who the 'character death' is? Harry and Ron are 14/15 and Cedric is 17, which I'm calling 'underage' but could be considered 'chan' in some circles.  
  
This fic was beta'd by Copper Beech and read by Magicofisis, both of whom have my undying gratitude.  


* * *

The following night, as it happened, was also the night before Ron's first exam. Harry and Cedric, being Triwizard Champions, were both exempt from their end-of-year exams, but Ron was not, and he sensed it unlikely that 'too busy shagging both Hogwarts Champions simultaneously' would be accepted as a workable excuse for being unable to sit his exams - even if it _would_ be a thoroughly plausible reason for being unable to _sit_.

The afternoon following the first steamy scene in the prefects' bathroom, Ron found Harry alone in the dormitory, napping on top of his blankets. Since every other Gryffindor from Dennis Creevey to the seventh-year prefects was busy revising in the library, Ron didn't hesitate to lay himself down next to Harry, curling himself warmly around the soft, sleeping body. Harry smiled and sighed, turning over to bury his face in Ron's neck; in response, Ron wound his arms around Harry and simply held him, allowing himself to drift off for a minute or two, as well.

He woke, moments later, to Harry nuzzling his neck and stroking his hair. Ron grinned and hugged Harry more tightly to show that he was awake. Harry let out a soft, deep chuckle that Ron felt more than heard, and felt in his groin more than anywhere else. "Was brilliant las' night," Harry murmured against Ron's throat, "C'n't wai' for more."

Ron pulled back, with great effort, so he could meet Harry's eyes. "I can't do it tonight, Harry," he said sadly. Seeing the look on Harry's face made it even worse. "It's History of Magic tomorrow, then Transfigurations, then Charms and Divination the day after that, Astronomy Wednesday night, Care of Magical Creatures and Defence Against the Dark Arts on Thursday, Potions and Herbology Friday. I'm swamped." He laughed humourlessly. "Now I think I understand why Hermione starts revising in April."

Harry kept staring at Ron, with such an expression of disappointment and desire that Ron wanted, really _wanted_ to be that person who could say, 'but you go ahead - you meet Cedric tonight and I'll join you again at the weekend.' Only he was afraid that Harry would take him up on the offer, would meet Cedric alone for five nights in a row, and that by Friday night neither of them would care whether he turned up or not.

With visible effort, Harry rearranged his face into a look of deep affection. "Well, we can't do it without you. We'll have to wait for Friday, won't we?"

Ron exhaled, feeling miserable and stupid and selfish, like the worst friend who ever walked the earth. He lowered his face to Harry's, kissing him softly and deeply and lingeringly until the moment hung in time, like it had been another life or another person who'd worried about exams and Hufflepuffs who wanted to steal his boyfriend, and all this Ron had ever done was lie on this bed, on this warm afternoon, and kiss Harry Potter.

Slowly, without urgency or hesitation, Ron began to shift his weight so that his could lower his face away from Harry's lips and toward Harry's belt. If he had to ruin Harry's night, at least he could make up for it with a little enjoyment of the last few moments before dinner.

When they finally made it to dinner, Hermione took one look at them and shook her head in amusement. She never did miss a thing, that one. Cedric also raised his head as Harry and Ron walked in, seemed to come to the same conclusion, and screwed his handsome face into a giant question mark. Ron shook his head sadly and mimed flipping the pages of a book - _can't tonight, I have to revise for exams_ , he thought as clearly as possible. Cedric shrugged, scowling, and returned to his housemates' conversation.

"I'll talk to him," muttered Harry, and he left Ron's side to approach the Hufflepuff table. As Ron tried to pretend he wasn't watching, Harry pulled Cedric away from his friends, whispered something in his ear for a moment or two until Cedric nodded, then returned to the seat Ron had saved for him. Ron watched Cedric shrug again, more fluidly and with less evident annoyance, and knew the gesture was meant for him. Harry leaned lightly into Ron at the crowded table and Ron closed his eyes, for only a few seconds, to feel the warmth of Harry's body through their robes.

The next couple of days, naturally, were the longest in Ron's life to date. He sat exams, ate meals, revised for more exams, slept fitfully and alone, then repeated the process. He was positive that he wouldn't pass half his courses and felt more miserable and distracted than ever before in his life.

On Tuesday, leaving North Tower after his Divination exam, Ron found both Harry and Cedric waiting for him in a shadowy corridor.

"The thing is," Harry said by way of greeting, while Cedric looked on and smirked knowingly, "the Third Task is Friday evening, only a few hours after your exams end. So we really don't see where waiting for your exams to be through is an option."

"You only have Astronomy tomorrow, and that's after dinner," Cedric concurred. "It doesn't matter what time you get to sleep tonight."

"Anyway," Harry picked up the argument, again, and Ron experienced a bizarre moment of disconnect as the tag-team onslaught reminded him of Fred and George, "we're not going to accept 'no' as an answer, so you may as well get used to the idea that you'll be with us tonight."

A patter of feet alerted all three of them to the public nature of the space, however deserted, and Ron flushed deeply at having come so close to being overheard. He met both pairs of predatory eyes and nodded mutely, his pulse already racing at the thought.

"Brilliant," enthused Cedric with a grin. "Same time and place, then?" And he turned and started to stride away, but trotted back quickly to press a hot, wet kiss to Harry's lips and then to Ron's before departing for real.

Ron gaped at Harry as he stood frozen in Cedric's wake. "You set me up, you did," he accused weakly.

"Too right," confirmed Harry with a wicked grin. "And I'm _not_ sorry." With that, he turned on his heel and disappeared in the direction of Gryffindor, leaving Ron weak-kneed and slack-jawed in the middle of the corridor.


	16. Part Fifteen: Study Breaks

  
Author's notes: Set during Goblet of Fire, so guess who the 'character death' is? Harry and Ron are 14/15 and Cedric is 17, which I'm calling 'underage' but could be considered 'chan' in some circles.  
  
This fic was beta'd by Copper Beech and read by Magicofisis, both of whom have my undying gratitude.  


* * *

It shouldn't have surprised Ron that capitulating on Tuesday meant that Harry and Cedric would corner him again before the end of the week. Wednesday was really impossible, of course, because of the Astronomy examination that night and an early morning appointment with Blast-Ended Skrewts the following morning, but on Thursday, the last night before the Third Task, both Harry and Cedric were far too edgy to accept Ron's suggestion that they wait until after they'd finished with the maze and have a private party for three to celebrate.

Against his better judgment, therefore, Ron allowed Harry to lead him back to the fifth floor on Thursday night, where they found the prefect's bathroom empty and quiet.

It never particularly occurred to Ron to wait for Cedric's arrival before they got started. He went directly to a row of taps and started turning them, letting the tub start filling up with a rainbow of enormous, foamy bubbles. When he looked back at Harry, he was standing there, fully dressed, clearly waiting for Ron's attention. As Ron watched, he loosened his tie slowly, tossed it into the air and waved his wand so it was transfigured into a small milksnake. With a few words of Parseltongue, Harry sent the snake winding up Ron's leg so that it ghosted slowly between his legs; once it reached his torso, Harry transfigured it back so it fell limply to the marble floor. By then, Harry was slowly unbuttoning his shirt, taking his time, fixing his gaze on Ron. He was sliding the sleeves down over his wrists when the door opened and Cedric came in.

"A strip tease, eh? Brilliant!" he said when he saw what Harry was doing. He quickly dropped his robes and kicked off his shoes, then moved around behind Ron while they both kept their eyes riveted to Harry.

Harry grinned and began to unbutton his trousers, and Ron felt Cedric's fingers mimicking the action on Ron's clothing. Slowly, and in perfect unison, Harry continued to strip for his audience while Cedric divested Ron of his garments. When they had finished and Harry was completely naked, Ron was still incongruously dressed in only his tie and shirt, and Cedric remained fully clothed. Ron turned and Harry stepped around so they both could go to work on getting Cedric naked; when they were almost done, on an impulse, Ron pulled off his own tie and used it to cover Cedric's eyes, and seeing what he was doing, Harry used Cedric's own tie to bind his hands, and Harry's tie to tie his feet.

"What's this about, then?" asked Cedric, but he was laughing and clearly getting excited by the turn of events. Harry Summoned a couple of folded towels and placed them at Cedric's feet, and he and Ron worked together to lower Cedric gently to his knees on top of them. Ron leaned down to take Cedric's face in both of his hands and snog him deeply and thoroughly, and Harry moved around behind Ron and reached around to grip him gently, pressing his crotch against Ron's arse in exactly the way Ron loved.

Cedric was moaning and smiling under Ron's mouth, arching his back and groaning when he found nothing but air before his hips. Ron quickly stepped forward, out of Harry's hands, stood up fully, and guided Cedric's mouth onto him. Cedric hummed around him, making Ron twitch gratefully, and began to suck greedily, pressing tightly with his tongue. Harry, meanwhile, Summoned another stack of towels and lay on his side beneath Ron's feet so he could reach to start sucking at Cedric, who moaned again and began bucking slowly against Harry's mouth. When Ron's knees gave out, he pushed Cedric onto his back - gently, being careful not to twist his legs uncomfortably or crush his bound hands - and straddled his chest on his knees so that Cedric could continue his ministrations. Behind him, Harry was stretched out on his stomach, still working on Cedric, and grinding himself into the cold, marble floor.

The naughty business with the ties was fun, but it was keeping Cedric from being flexible enough that someone would be doing something more for Harry, so Ron pulled the Hufflepuff tie from Cedric's wrists and the Gryffindor one from his eyes. Harry, catching on to what he was doing, pulled his own tie off Cedric's ankles and quickly spread Cedric's legs so he could stroke the insides of his thighs. Unblinded, Cedric looked up into Ron's eyes and moaned again around him, and the combination was enough to send Ron over the edge, so that he fell forward onto his hands, pulsing and bucking and crying out.

Under him, he heard Cedric cry out, too, and could feel the soft crown of Harry's head moving faster and faster against his bare arse, then go still as Harry swallowed. Ron rolled off Cedric and lay on his back for at least half a minute, panting and staring up at the vaulted, marble ceiling. Beside him, he could hear and sort of see Harry crawl up onto Cedric and begin kissing him, and Cedric's arms pull tight against Harry, holding him close. He supposed he might have felt a pang of jealousy, except that the sight was so beautiful (once he turned his head to look) that it made his heart glad to watch it.

Smiling, Ron slid himself into the hot, bubbly bath, still watching Cedric and Harry snog. Harry's small, perfect arse was clenching and unclenching as he began to thrust down against Cedric's hips, and Cedric's hands found their way to grasp it and guide it for a better angle. Harry looked up then, met Ron's eyes, and grinned, and that was all it took for Ron to go hard again. Still watching him, Harry began to buck faster, stretching his neck to make room for Cedric's lapping tongue. Cedric's hands looked bigger and stronger than ever against Harry's thin form, and when they gripped Harry's cheeks, Ron had to take hold of himself and begin stroking. Harry was calling out in pleasure, now, grinding harder and faster and spreading his legs to maximise the contact between his body and Cedric's, but he was staring at Ron, moaning Ron's name, reaching one hand out toward him as he yelled and tensed up. Before Cedric could even finish, Harry was dragging himself toward the water, dunking a hand in and swatting Ron's own away. Ron braced his hands against the edge of the bath and thrust freely into Harry's hand. Over Harry's shoulder, he met Cedric's frustrated expression and gestured with his head that he should join them in the water. Cedric grinned and scrambled to dive in, swimming up behind Ron and sliding himself between Ron's legs, where he thrust and pound himself, his hipbones bumping against Ron's arse, making Ron unable to decide whether he wanted to buck forward into Harry's hand or backward against Cedric's firm lower belly. Soon, it didn't matter, as his vision greyed out and he was only vaguely aware of swinging his hips wildly forward and back to make the best of both types of contact, and then the world went white around the edges and his head fell back onto Cedric's shoulder, and Cedric held him up as Harry finished him off with a tight, slick grip.

Cedric dragged Harry into the water, after that, and the three of them continued kissing, licking, biting, stroking, thrusting, moaning and gasping until they were all thoroughly exhausted, breathless, happy, and very, very satisfied. They found themselves, somehow, at a corner were there was a small set of stairs, where they lounged and leaned on one another, idly stroking or kissing from time to time, but too knackered to put any urgency into it.

"So, the maze," said Cedric to Harry. "Wha'd'you reckon?"

Harry shrugged and raked his fingers through Cedric's wet hair. "Dunno," he said, almost offhandedly, although Ron knew how much he wanted to win, how nervous he was. "I suppose we'll find out tomorrow, yeah?"

Cedric grinned and preened a little under his touch, giving Ron's shoulder a squeeze at the same time. "Well, whatever happens, whoever wins, maybe we can still do this ... I mean, if you both want."

Ron caught Harry's eyes and grinned. He knew this three-way arrangement couldn't last forever, but he wasn't in any hurry to see it end. Harry nodded and said, "Yeah, I think it's safe to say that we both want." And to emphasise his point, he tackled them both back into the water for one more go.


	17. Epilogue: Remember

  
Author's notes: Set during Goblet of Fire, so guess who the 'character death' is? Harry and Ron are 14/15 and Cedric is 17, which I'm calling 'underage' but could be considered 'chan' in some circles.

This fic was beta'd by Copper Beech and read by Magicofisis, both of whom have my undying gratitude.  


* * *

It had got dull outside the Maze, waiting for something to happen. From the spectators' seats, Ron had heard the occasional scuffle or shout and a scream that had sounded like Fleur. He had seen when the red sparks had gone up which had turned out to be sent up above an unconscious Viktor Krum. But all of this had taken place over more than half an hour, and as the waiting had grown more stressful, it had also grown more tedious in the way that a body can only produce excited adrenaline for so long before the senses go numb and even danger starts to seem like another delay to the inevitable outcome that someone would emerge victorious and they could all leave the chilly, damp benches and go inside for some warm Butterbeer and a party for whichever of the two Hogwarts Champions it was who ultimately won.

Beside him, Bill and his mum chatted lightly while peering into the darkness around the hedges. On the other side, Hermione bit her fingernails and looked miserable. Ron could tell that a battle was raging in her mind over whether or not she should seek out Krum and see whether he was alright. Her arguments were almost audible: on the one hand, he would want to know she cared; on the other, she wasn't sure how much she did. On the one hand, it would seem callous for her not to go to him; on the other, Karkaroff might not let her near his favourite student. Hermione finally huffed, crossed her arms, and sat back in her seat, scowling as she kept her eyes glued to the Maze. Ron smiled indulgently in her direction and leaned lightly toward her, and thought he felt her lean lightly toward him in return.

Almost imperceptibly, the energy of the crowd changed, began to build in intensity, until a wave swept across from the far side and the words were all jumbled up and indecipherable, but the names 'Harry' and 'Cedric' and the word 'dead' started swirling around and Ron felt himself go white and cold and when he looked at Hermione and back at his brother and mum, they all shared his expression.

He wouldn't remember having done it, later, but Ron leapt to his feet and sprinted around the crowd, using his height to find a gap in the bodies where he could see: Harry, lying in the grass, Triwizard Cup discarded beside him, eyes open and lips moving while Dumbledore crouched before him, left hand clenched tight around Cedric's wrist, and Cedric - _oh Merlin, Cedric_ ...

As minimal as Harry's movements were, they had caused a rush of relief to course through Ron's gut, with a surging hope that, because Harry was clearly alive, the word 'dead' had referred to something else, or even been a different word entirely that had had its phonemes twisted in the muddled crowd so that it had confused itself by the time it had met Ron's ears. But as minimal as Harry's movements were, Cedric looked still as stone beside him, not even his chest rising or falling the way it once had under Ron's ear while they had caught their breath after one of their illicit rendezvous.

Cedric. Dead. _Cedric_. The longer Ron watched the body not move, the less it looked like the boy for whom he'd formed so many fantasies, the boy who had wrapped a strong arm behind him in the bath only the night before, the boy whose eyes always lit up with joy when Ron or Harry ran and hungry hand roughly down his muscled front. Even at this distance, Ron could see that the eyes that stared blankly at the night sky held no light, no joy, no _Cedric_.

Someone pushed by him in the crowd, and Ron had barely recognised him as Amos Diggory before Dumbledore was reacting to something Fudge said, leaving Harry's side and moving to intercept Mr. Diggory, and behind him, Mad-Eye Moody was pulling Harry to his feet, dragging him away toward the castle, and it didn't look _right_ , and Dumbledore didn't even _see_ ...

The next twenty-four hours were pure misery, from when Ron finally got to Dumbledore and pointed out Harry's absence, to waiting with Hermione and Bill and his mum in the Infirmary, first for Harry's arrival and then the vigil while Harry slept, to the news of Barty Crouch, Jr., receiving the Kiss before he could be interrogated and Fudge's unwillingness, even in the face of Harry's testimony, to believe that Voldemort had returned. He'd seen Harry's frustration and anger and deep sadness in the infirmary, had watched Harry skirt the edge of tears and avert his eyes as though wishing Ron would look away, but couldn't stop watching. This was his Harry, and they had lost their Cedric, and Harry had _been there_ , and Ron didn't know what to do to make it hurt any less, for either of them, but he couldn't imagine leaving Harry's side for even a moment, even if there was nothing at all that would ever make it better.

It wasn't until Harry was back in Gryffindor, shaken and pale and thinner than ever but also carrying that visible thread of strength inside him, that Ron started to feel even vaguely normal again. He still rounded every corner of every corridor expecting to see Cedric's shining, teasing smile, but at least he could hold Harry again, could stroke his hair and murmur nonsense syllables of comfort into his ear, could wrap himself around him in bed without even having to make excuses or apologies to the other boys in the dormitory, because they wouldn't begin to object or to ask why.

Late that night, when Harry woke again, from the third or fourth consecutive nightmare, Ron had been surprised to feel Harry's hands on him. The sick, hollow feeling in Ron's gut had removed any thought of physical needs from his mind, but when Harry reached into his trousers and looked up at Ron with naked, pleading eyes, Ron hadn't considered refusing him for even a moment. He'd drawn the curtains closed around them, unbuttoned his own flies and then Harry's, and reached forward to grasp onto the warmest part of Harry.

They were together every night after that, for the few that remained before the end of term. They were always quiet, and a bit grim, a bit businesslike, and they always held each other very, very tightly when they were through. Ron was sure he heard Harry sniffling, felt a hot dampness that leaked onto his cheeks, but never said anything, because he knew Harry didn't want him to have noticed.

When, in the Leaving Feast, Dumbledore raised his glass to Cedric and then to Harry, Ron glued himself to Harry's side and kept silent vigil for any hint that Harry would need to be rushed away from people and into a quiet corridor where the hundreds of pairs of eyes wouldn't be able to follow. Harry made it through, though, even to the end of Dumbledore's speech, to the end of the meal, to the end of the walk back to Gryffindor. They packed in silence - Ron suspected that everyone, throughout the castle, packed in silence that night - and fell asleep together in Harry's bed.

Hours later, Harry poked Ron awake. Somewhere in the castle, a clock was striking midnight. Harry was already standing, holding the Invisibility Cloak up in invitation for Ron to join him under it. "We have to go," he told him, and Ron didn't think to deny him, even for a moment.

It didn't take long for Ron to realise where Harry was taking them. Harry's voice was thick with tears when he whispered " _Pine fresh_ " to the fourth door past Boris the Bewildered, but Ron let himself be led inside, watched Harry fold the Cloak on a bench and start the taps and begin to remove his pyjamas. He was on the last button of his top when Ron grabbed his hands and looked imploringly into his eyes.

"Harry," he said, "what are you doing?" Harry's face was wet with tears and Ron was near panic with protective worry. He could feel his own eyes leaking, as well, but only cared in that it made it that much harder for him to offer Harry his strength, when he had so little to give. "We don't have to do this," he added lamely.

Harry fixed Ron's eyes defiantly with his own. "Dumbledore said, 'Remember Cedric Diggory,'" Harry told him. "That's what I'm doing." With that, he Summoned a pile of towels and knelt on them before Ron.

Ron gasped when Harry tugged down his pyjama bottoms and covered him with his mouth, but quickly pulled away and dropped to his knees to bring himself level with Harry. Tears running down his face, he gathered Harry tightly in his arms and crushed him to his chest, hanging on as if for dear life.

"We'll remember, Harry," Ron told him, stroking his impossible hair and letting his tears leak down the side of Harry's neck. "You and I will always remember Cedric. I promise." Harry nodded and, for the first time Ron could ever remember, broke down in audible sobs, clutching at Ron's back and keening against his chest. Ron held on with every last ounce of his strength, not caring that they were kneeling in the prefects' bathroom or that Harry's top was mostly unbuttoned or that his own trousers were halfway down to his knees.

He didn't know it then, but in about a month's time, a letter would find him at Grimmauld Place - a place he'd not heard of yet on this last night of his Fourth Year - with a shining red and gold badge inside that would bestow upon him a wide range of rights and privileges. If he'd known it, he wouldn't have been surprised to hear that the very first thought that would cross his mind would be the memory of this moment and of the three nights he and Harry had spent in this room with Cedric, and that in his very next thought it would occur to him never to use his prefect's bathroom privileges, because the memories would be too painful to relive, and even more painful to lose by diluting them with frequent visits to this room.

Ron and Harry would keep on together, over the summer at Grimmauld Place and on into Fifth Year. They would have sex less often, due to Harry's nightmares and the attack on Ron's father, until they were only holding each other through the night. They would eventually stop doing that, too, except for extremely rare occasions, but it was only because their need for each other had changed, not because it had diminished. Ron would always have his Harry, and Harry would always have his Ron, in their own way, and that would never change, for the rest of their lives.

As for the prefects' bathroom, Ron would eventually decide that he should act like a prefect and bathe there, when he had time for more than a quick shower. He would never bring someone to the room with him again - not Harry, and certainly not Lavender, when she came along in Sixth Year - but he would take a proper bath nearly every week for the remainder of his time at Hogwarts, and when he did, he would always spend the time thinking quietly of Cedric.

Ron could trace his thoughts of Cedric back to his earliest memories. All in all, Ron reckoned he'd been mad for Cedric for most of his life. And everything that happened to Harry, and to him, and to Hermione and Ginny and Neville and Luna and Sirius and Dumbledore and everyone else who worked with them and fought with them, it had all started the night of the Third Task, in the cemetery, with Harry and Cedric and Wormtail and Voldemort.

Whatever else happened, Ron would make sure he remembered that.


End file.
